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

Since more than 15 years, ATSAF is kindly organizing annually the Tropentag in cooperation with various sponsors and universities. Among other activities, ATSAF supports young students with interest for journalism in science and is building up teams of competencies.

The pictures of the Carrot City project in the exhibition area around room B3, take you on a journey to different urban gardening projects in different cities of North America and Europe from the ground up to the roof of several leveled houses.

“The adoption of hybrid rice as an agricultural innovation can have a positive impact on food security”, says Till Ludwig, this year’s awardee of the prestigious Hans Ruthenberg Award for graduates. Although population is projected to increase dramatically in the future years consequently affecting the supply in food insecure areas, he added that its adoption can improve the rice consumption per capita between 0.17% and 7.62% especially in countries that are dependent on rice as a staple food crop. The research entitled “Impact of Hybrid Rice on Food Security. A Spatial Partial Equilibrium Analysis of Global Adoption and Diffusion of Hybrid Rice Varieties” has been taken seriously by scientists and its substantial impact have made it to be accepted for publication in the International Rice Research Institute. However, Till cautioned that it is a consumer oriented research. Looking at the production system of hybrid rice, the disadvantages still outweighs the benefits, and one should take into account that the bulk of rice consumers are in fact smallholder rice producers.

Read a summary of the German speech and question&answer session during the introductory session and find out why researchers are trendsetters

Christian Andres – a young scientist and a specialist on yam – a native plant in West Africa, is one of the 3 award winners of the Hans H. Ruthenberg Award for Graduates. This is a prestige award in the academia of agriculture for diploma or master thesis that contribute on food security research and reduction of poverty in developing countries. He is now working as a research assistant for production system at the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL). Chritian wrote his master thesis at ETH Zurich about fertilization of Yam with poultry manure and its effects on nutrient dynamics and nutrient use efficiency.

What do we know about agriculture in urban city area and how can we connect urban and rural households and their livelihoods to the land in the modern context of urbanization? Gordon Prain a Senior Scientist for social and Health Sciences at the International Potato Centre presented on the topic of “The Dynamic livelihoods along the rural urban continuum – How can agriculture research and policy contribute?” as a keynote speech in the opening ceremony.

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