A diverse range of projects from all over the world highlighted the importance of transdisciplinary approaches addressing challenges related to the concept of the World Food System. Melvin Lippe from the Leibnitz University Hanover presented the recent progress in his research he conducts in the Wayanad District in India. To be able to handle the many different forces affecting the land- as well as resource-use decissions seem to present the main challenge to cope with. Another approach was pursuid by Chinwe Ifejika Speranza from the German Development Institute. She investigated the ability of the agriculture in Kenya to cope with climate change. Chinwe Ifejika Speranza outlined the different components of resilience of rural systems that are self-organization, learning capacity and buffer capacity with a special focus on self-organization. It was a pleasure then to follow what Holger Hindorf from the university of Bonn presented his efforts aiming to conserve forest harbouring the last wild coffee trees in Ethiopia. The audience was not only explained the real origin of the words "coffee" and "bean" respectively but also that the robusta cultivars are less tasty than the arabica cultivars. On the other hand c. robusta cultivars are not as robust as c. arabica cultivars with respect to resistance against pathogens.

The opinions of young professionals such as Ph.D. students were very positive around the Tropentag conference. Tropentag accommodates a diversity of disciplines, themes, cultures, and geographical territories and as such it has grown as a major European platform to cater development. Watch and listen to student voices..

Pigs, sheeps and chicken...
Almost all the common domesticated animals were present at the oral presentations about the Animal nutrition and supplementation. The topics covered in the presentations ranged from aspects of grazing, nutritional values as well as digestabilities of various components used in animal feeding.

Mounir Louhaichi presented his efforts to make applicable GPS technology in tracking and recording the spatial and temporal pattern when moving. This approach may help to improve the grazing schedules in order to optimaly use land resources in a more cost-effective and precise way.

How does different feeding supplements influences the performance of milk constitution of Awassi sheeps in Middle Eastern countries? Muhi El-Dine Hilali from international Cener for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) presented the outcomes of his research with respect to this question.

The to Prof. Kreutzer unknown tropical legume Mucuna pruriens L. formally known as Velvet Bean was investigated in the study of Vellingiri Vadivel from the University of Hohenheim. It was shown, that the Velvet Bean can be suggested as an alternative component in poultry feed after further investigation of the effects of toxins.

800 participants, 1100 presenters tried to come of which 520 actually reached Zurich, 24 oral sessions and 29 guided poster sessions. The basket of knowledge was tremendous and immensely diverse. Folkard Asch had the honor to wrap up this year’s conference Tropentag 2010. “World food system – a contribution from Europe” – the goal of this year’s conference was set high. Networking, discussing and talking about burning issues, meetings of generations, exchanging experience and insights. That’s the way forward in letting the whole world integrate and bring together the scattered but enormous wealth of knowledge. It’s our responsibility to provide a think tank and become embedded in the larger and more complex network of the globe. “A mutual understanding of the cultural diversity is needed” says Folkard Asch. Poster award Out of more than 350 posters the “international” jury consisting of Bernard Lehmann (ETH Zurich), Mathias Becker (University of Bonn), Christian Hülsebusch (DITSL Witzenhausen), Ursula Gugger Suter (North-South Centrehttp://blog.tropentag.de/node/113/edit) awarded Dimitrios Argyropoulos (1.), Katja Kehlenbeck (2.) and Sabine Stürz (3.). Dimitrios Argyropoulos, University of Hohenheim, presenting his award-winning poster.

Indonesia is in the spotlight! At least three out of the six participants who did their oral presentation at the Tropentag annual conference on Tuesday (15/9), had drawn their interest on the country known to the world as the third largest forest nation after Brazil and the Republic of Congo. And the theme on forest management was a kick off with a total of 6 participants (oral presentations) focusing on case studies coming from developing countries. The latest scheme of Reducing Emission on Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) was presented by Thomas Baldauf (vTI/ von Thuenen-Institute, Institute for World Forestry, Germany), with a topic of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD): A Climate Change Mitigation Strategy on a Critical Track who focused his research in Indonesia and Madagascar. According to the speaker, and as a result to his research, the REDD scheme was seen to benefit Indonesia the most, due to the high deforestation rates in the country that was lately ranked as the 3rd largest greenhouse gas emitter due to deforestation (based on a report study released by Worldbank).

Oral Presentation III: Aquaculture and fisheries Ulfert Focken from Johann Heinrich von Thuenen-Institut opened the session where 3 participants presented their papers and moderated a quite lively discussion. Raymond Ouedraogo: Management of Fish Diversity in Lake Bam, Burkina Faso: Indigenous Knowledge and Implications for Conservation Raymond discussed that management of any type of resources particularly fish resources needs to account indigenous knowledge as it does have a distinct impact on its conservation. Further, he indicated that there are certain indigenous beliefs needs to be changed as these pushed for depletion of the fish stock. He even cites cases wherein people believe that “fish drop from sky and come from hills and caves” or that “authorities have to power to hide fish”. Furthermore, communal belief can be altered by institutions, education, religions, and economic change to push people towards the conservation their natural resources so not to push it to the brink of depletion. As of the moment, there are actions emanating from the grass roots level to provide conservation efforts like creating mini-dams and planting trees to fully delineate Lake Bam.

After got introduced to the palm oil production potential in Tanzania by Anna Segerstedt from the Institut for Environetal Economics and World Trade at the Leibnitz University Hannover with respect to sustainability standards the point was clear: there is no chance under the assumed conditions to produce palm oil for the export market as well as for label production due to export barriers and costs linked to certification respectively. Ms Segerstedt found however, that according to her results the palm oil production for the local market is competitive. Zora Lea Urech from the Department of Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich outlined in her interesting presentation possible drivers leading to further deforestation in the eastern part of Madagascar taking into consideration the main components of the livelihood strategies of small farm-households. The complex land tenure system, next to other factors, hinders a sustainable use of the forest ecosystems and need to be further investigated.