Enhancing food chain integrity: quality assurance mechanisms for air pollution impacts on fruit and vegetable systems. Final Technical Report

Abstract

Recognising the need to address food security for rapidly increasing urban populations in developing countries, this project sought to enhance food chain integrity for selected horticultural foods important to the urban poor in Indian cities. The impacts of air pollution on both food safety (through heavy metal contamination) and nutritional quality were examined, and recommendations for appropriate and feasible public sector and market-mediated approaches to food quality assurance were made. The impact on the livelihoods of horticultural system stakeholders was assessed