Philipp Gassner's blog

Beyond the Ivory Tower

Philipp Gassner — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 21:34:14 +0000

Simon Chater, Director of Green Ink in an interview about the importance of communication at the Science Forum and beyond. Interview: Read more on 'Sustainability Science beyond the Ivory Tower'

Stage Diving at the Closing Session

Philipp Gassner — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:14:28 +0000

'I’ve learned more than I have contributed', Linxiu Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences nicely summarized before handing over to Ken Cassman, the ISPC Chair. Cassman didn’t intend to stage dive when he asked the about 150 participants of the Science Forum Closing Session to raise their hands. But the show of hands indicated the people present from both disciplines, agriculture and nutrition, whom the conference –quite successfully- aimed to bring to getter. And out of their ‘silos’. Read more

Two Sexes Are Quite Inadequate

Philipp Gassner — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 08:50:57 +0000

‘It would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men, or lived like men, or looked like men, for if two sexes are quite inadequate, considering the vastness and variety of the world, how should we manage with one only?’ Virginia Woolf is quite right, as was reflected in Breakout Session 7, exploring links between nutrition, health and the female domains of subsistence farming. In the latter, inequality persists in unequal opportunities, low representation of women in leadership and in continuing violence against women in all its forms. Two out of three illiterate adults are women. Every 90 seconds, a woman dies in pregnancy. And even though the figure of women accounting for 80% of agricultural production, while owning less than 2% of land, is now contested, women clearly contribute to agriculture and nutrition quite differently than men. Obviously, 'The playing field needs to be leveled'. Read more

The motion for lunch is rejected

Philipp Gassner — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 12:31:15 +0000

‘The motion for lunch is rejected’, ruled Joachim Von Braun of the University of Bonn wittily, when chairing the first plenary session at the Science Forum 2013. He rather carried on with the session, setting the scene of the Forum and pointing out, why sufficient lunch is also still rejected to 925 million people world wide. To answer why 15% of the world’s population suffer from undernourishment after decades of agricultural research is indeed a tough one. The vast amount of knowledge gathered during this time was obviously not enough. At the same time ‘We don’t need to know everything’, Von Braun pointed out. What we really have to know, keynote speaker Patrick Webb from Tufts University sketched - to provide everybody with the lunch they deserve. Read more A healthy lunch @ Science Forum

DAAD Summer School: Don’t say a word

Philipp Gassner — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 12:28:05 +0000

23 Alumni from 15 countries made their way to the deepest Swabia from 8th to 16th September to learn all about “Rural development beyond agriculture” at the University of Applied Forest Sciences, Rottenburg. Having returned safely, they share their experience on Tropentag - in a photo interview without saying a word. View the picture sequence.

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Philipp Gassner — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 13:50:35 +0000

After the screening of a classical transition film, folks from nearby Transition Town Tübingen burn one up and give a good taste of applied transition. Read more

Voices of Veggies

Philipp Gassner — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 18:45:46 +0000

Urban gardeners, and those to be, got the unique chance of watching gardens speak, at the end of the very lively and fruitful day of the Tropentag 2013. In her film Speaking Gardens filmmaker Teresa Beck joins art with ecology and impressively introduces the Berlin urban gardening movement, along seven urban gardening projects. Read more

Your City is Sick?

Philipp Gassner — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 14:56:59 +0000

Stuttgart has caught a cold. Not only the inhabitants of a city can be ill, also the city itself might have a bad health. Cities around the world, just like Stuttgart, continue to grow and grow. Now more than half of the world’s population live in urban areas- with immense impacts: Poverty, social exclusion, food insecurity, malnutrition, waste, emissions and vulnerability to climate change are soaring. Our cities are sick. Read more René van Veenhuizen's Keynote Speech Read more