Pictured here, is another blogger from the student reporter team: Helen Sitar from the US. She is holding an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science & Policy (Smith College, USA). At University of Bayreuth (Germany), she is currently doing a masters degree in Global Change Ecology. For her, it’s the first time as a student reporter. By being student reporter, she hopes to increase her knowledge and skills in (web) journalism – especially as she is currently also considering a career in journalism. It is also her first participation at Tropentag. She is very eager to engage as much as possible with the people and the many issues discussed here in the next couple of days (e.g. intercultural conflicts and development). Her main interests are human-environment interactions and specifically, the consequences and implications from man-made ecological changes on the environment and human livelihoods.

When discussing challenges in tropical agriculture, is it actually necessary to talk to researchers from the tropics? Birgit Zipf, second-year student reporter for the Tropentag 2014 conference, certainly believes so! She's tired of attending conferences where German, British, and American presenters are “talking about the ‘others’” from developing regions, instead of inviting and “rather talking with them.” But why is this distinction particularly important to Birgit? (Continue...)

Working with smallholder farmers in Nepal, Pramila Thapa has seen the importance in combining development and research activities. Originally from Nepal, she is finishing her first year of a master’s degree in Sustainable International Agriculture at Gottingen University in Germany. Her first degree was also in Agriculture. Now focusing on agribusiness, she has previous experience in integrated pest management and market access, crafting success stories for her work with a national Nepalese NGO. As a student reporter, she hopes to link scientific outcomes and the dissemination of findings to on-the-ground realities. Through participation in the Tropentag conference, she also hopes to improve her own understanding of the range of research taking place around the world related to tropical and semi-tropical agriculture, in order to bring back lessons for her own country.

When it comes to being multidisciplinary and multitasking, one may find in Pin Pravalprukskul a good example. Pin is a MSc. in Sustainable Development in Agriculture (Agris Mundus) student who will be on both sides of the Tropentag 2014 conference. She will present a poster from her work in Kenya, where she investigated how farmers make decisions regarding soil management. But Pin will also be a student reporter for the conference, using her previous experience in the university newspaper in Copenhagen and an online magazine for her masters' programme. One will also find in Pin a passionate human being with diverse interests. Her desire regarding the conference is to find out the latest progresses in agricultural development, climate change adaptation, soil management and the relationship between gender and agricultural development. Pin opinionates that Tropentag is the first conference with a topic that addresses most of her interests, with an interdisciplinary approach that tries to understand how agricultural systems wok and how different fields are linked with each other.

Tropentag is an international conference where professors, researchers and students convene to share new information or findings about their research. Student reporters play a big role in informing the public about the conference especially reaching the young people. So what interest David to join the student reporters team? Continue

To understand Ruffy Rodrigo’s interest in Tropentag, you have to know, that he finished his studies in Forestry just to start an additional master in “tropical and international forestry”. He is familiar with these thematics, because before he moved to Göttingen last year, he lived in the Phillipines in Villaba. Despite from the cold winters he enjoys living in the laid-back town.

There is not only a scientific interest in his visit to the conference: Ruffy also wants to meet and connect to researchers and professors from all over the world – or maybe even find a supvervisor for his PhD or a future employer.

Juan Egas is no stranger to crossing communication boundaries. He first got a taste of the world of lobbying through his previous work at the Ministry of Agriculture in his native Ecuador, where he developed a passion for connecting stakeholders from different arenas. He currently co-runs a blog on sustainability, and plans on using his Student Reporter skills to make complex scientific ideas more digestible for his readers. Continue

"There is enough knowledge existent already. It is a time to deliver this to users.” - this is a conclusion that we got to during the interview with Jose.