In this morning’s oral presentations on Agronomic Practices, Wolfgang Pfingst opened the session with his study on the cultivation, processing and marketing of the endangered orchid species Dendrobium chrysotoxum in China. Their honey-flavored flowers are a high priced neglected non-timber food product that could bring additional income to farmers. By selling them through the channel of a local Chinese enterprise, the demand on the European market could be met. Camilo Lesmes Fabian designed a new model for dermal and inhalation exposure assessment of pesticide application in Colombia since existing models being developed in Europe are not applicable for the Colombian conditions. His dynamic model includes working tasks, environmental compartments, protection and exposure concentrations. Ali Mokhtassi-Bidgoli’s study took place within the wheat production project in Iran in order to develop a crop production system that minimizes energy input. In short, most of the energy use comes from non-renewable energy. Kibet Ngetich compared three different ethnic groups in the Mau Escarpment, Kenya for their adoption of organic farming in crop production. Concluding, there’s an urgent need for ethnically focused approaches of introducing organic farming.

A junior researcher commented on 14 th September, 'I wanted to participate in a conference in Mexico, but I could not. It was costly. I found the Tropentag is more cheaper for a student to participate'. Actually Tropentag has more to offer for young professionals. Watch and listen to the human resources department of GTZ, how as a development agency they like to use this event to search for potential young professionals.

Although early in the morning, the headlines attracted many participants. Padruot Fried from the Swiss Forum for international Agricultural Research (SFIAR) gently led trough the headlines: Public support from SDC Yves Guinand from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) highlighted the contribution from the Swiss Confederation with respect to food security. Swiss Research Institutions Prof. Bernard Lehmann, dean of the department of Food- and Agriculture (D-AGRL) at ETH Zurich, Fritz Schneider from the Swiss college of Agriculture (SHL), Markus Giger from the Centre of Development and environment of University of Berne (CDE) and the National Centre of Competence in Research North-South (NCCR North-South) and Urs Niggli from the Swiss research institution for organic agriculture (FiBL) then outlined the available resources and the strategies in addressing the particular research interests respectively. Private Initiatives Hans Jöhr from the Nestlé Company was glad to present a sample of different sustainable agriculture initiatives from different emerging countries. SFIAR award ceremony

MONISH JOSE: Value Chain Analysis of Medicinal Plant Market in Kerala Since Kerala is the world’s most famous area for ayurvedic medicine, there is an increasing demand in ayurvedic plants, while the area under medical cultivation stays the same. According to this circumstance, the region has to face several problems, which have to be solved. Most important, there has to be set up a price regulatory body and an education system to teach the farmers about scientific harvesting methods. BOHUMIL HAVRLAND: Agricultural Marketing Information System (AMIS) The Agricultural Marketing Information System (AMIS) has been developed with the help of agricultural producers in the Republic of Moldova. It operates as a facilitator system and is destined to play an important role for producers as well as for tradesmen and middlemen to reach information about each other. Especially poor famers have the possibility to access the system in different centers, which are located all over Moldova. DANSINOU SILVERE TOVIGNAN: Agricultural Value Chain Modeling and Governance: The Case of Shea Butter in Benin As agriculture is very important in developing countries, value chain promotion is a development strategy which should help local farmers to get access to the global market. The example of the shea butter value chain of Benin shows us, that many actors are involved in the chain, fulfilling their specific functions. This leads to a higher profit for all the actors belonging to the supply chain.

Aline Dos Santos Neutzling: Predicted and true herd development over ten years by applying a bio-economic model to village cattle in South-western Niger. Ms. Neutzling gave a presentation about the cattle development of 40 households in Niger between 1998 and 2008. This development was predicted with a computer model (PRY Herd Life) using stochastic and deterministic modeling with fixed input parameters. The model predicted that there would be 153 heads of cattle in 2008; there were 151 heads, so a good simulation. The model did not perform well for the herd structure, this might have been caused by the fact that the model only has 7 culling strategies to choose from and that this is fixed for the entire time period. Faradilla Attamimi: Bali Cattle Performance in Smallholder Mixed Systems of Indigenous and Transmigrant Farmers on Ceram Island, Indonesia

Watch the provocative statements of Prof Paul Collier, who is of the opinion that agricultural scientists are more attached to emotions than to the evidences. He adviced that young agricultural scientist, in order to fight against hunger and poverty in Africa, should focus on the evidence based practices but not to attach to the prejudices of the contemporary science parctices. Do you agree or disagree? Read summary of his presentation in earlier post, 'How to feed the bottom billion?' and watch the video and comment

Improving Soil Zinc Biovailability in Response to Crop Residues and Wheat Zn Efficient Genotype – Vajiheh Dorostkar Zinc is an important nutrient in the human diet. It is also an important plant micronutrient. Approximately, 50% of land under cereal cultivation is deficient in zinc. These lands are generally located in arid areas. In Iran, where the study was conducted, around 80% of the cultivated land is zinc deficient. Most crop residues are burned or grazed by animals, but residues balance pH, produce organic matter, and improve C:N, etc. As a result, these residues can be used to improve zinc bioavailability in the soil. Crop residues and wheat cultivars were studied to examine their contribution to soil zinc bioavailability in the soil. Sunflower, clover, bean, sorghum and safflower were used in study. The study showed that the use of crop residues from all of the crops have the potential to enhance the zinc bioavailability in arid Iranian agricultural systems. Vajiheh Dorostka gives her presentation on zinc bioavailability and crop residues in Iran Consequences of Sequential Leaf Harvest on Root Yield and N Export of Two Cassava Cultivars in South-central Cameroon – Jelle Willem Duindam

Albert Engel, from GTZ told us his opinion about the tropentag. He considers Tropentag as an avenue to look up broad spectrum of research and to link up to the people who are doing the research. Accoding to his opinion it is an important event to identify the bottlenecks, information and research need and an opportunity to get in contact with people who are interested in development cooperation. Watch his inspiring comment about the student reporter, an innovation of the Tropentag 2010