Special Foreword by Ruth Oniang'o for Vol.13 No.3 of African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development

Last week Professor Ruth Oniang'o, the Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development gave the following Foreword for vol.13 no.3:

As we release this issue, we wish to join everyone in putting former president of South Africa in our thoughts as he continues to spend time in hospital in a critical condition. MADIBA, as South Africans fondly call him, will eternally remain an international icon. My personal thoughts are with the family, and they should remember that so many across the globe hold Nelson Mendela in very high regard.

This issue has 16 peer reviewed papers. They make an interesting read. In addition, our website carries interesting and relevant reprints, and other materials that have been transferred from elsewhere and made available for our readership. The website itself has interesting non technical material for popular reading. For example, we have an article on banana, describing its health benefits.

For those who are just joining us, let me say something about the journal. It started in the year 2001, as a capacity building activity to impart some analytical, writing and editorial skills to budding African scholars. Seed funding from friendly organizations, financial and moral support from friends, and reviewing support from scholars across the world, some of whom I have not even met, have all worked in unison to get us to this point in time. We are now in our 12th year, have more than 130 reviewers in different fields, and about 10 technical reviewers. I could not manage without this support. Our secretariat is small. Michael, Emily, myself and always an intern around who is proceeding for graduate studies. We are constantly looking for funds. Sustaining a journal is not easy.

Thanks to all our dedicated supporters that I have mentioned, we are now able to release our 58th issue, and papers for the next issue (16 of them) are ready. We receive many manuscripts, unsolicited, some good, some not so good. The review process is thorough and involves the author all the way, we reject many manuscripts even as some authors give up themselves along the way. By the time a paper is rejected, everything has been tried to improve it. It is our hope, and indeed our belief, that once a young author has been through us, preparation of the next manuscript should be a lot easier, regardless of where they wish to submit it.

We are indexed by, linked to and quality assured by a number of organizations and partners who can be found on the homepage of the journal. We can make money through publishing of a special issue. We can work with you to prepare such an issue. Please try us. We have a global reach. You can also support an intern for 6 months and by the time we are done with them, they are ready to proceed for graduate studies.

If you need certain expertise, please try from our source. We carry resumes and we profile our reviewers to acknowledge them and give them visibility.

Below, find what we have for you in this issue. Please enjoy. To the authors, CONGRATULATIONS and thank you for choosing AJFAND to share your scientific knowledge. To our patrons and friends, we say AHSANTE SANA (Swahili for THANK YOU VERY MUCH).

Ruth Oniang’o
Editor-in-Chief, AJFAND

We will be posting vol.13 no.3 very soon on Bioline, but in the meantime you can find it at the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development website.