Halfway through Day 2 of Tropentag 2017, limitations to productivity seem to be a recurring theme across many disciplines.

Bulle Dabasso, from the University of Nairobi, described to his audience a bottleneck in economic potential, the limited market value of lean animals in Kenya. His study provided a detailed description of Stratified Cattle Production (SCP) as an option for improving market value for lean animals, therefore increasing the economic potential of pastoral livestock production in Kenya. Debasso's explanation of the necessity of addressing this bottleneck seemed relevant in the context of his research, but I was left desiring further exploration of the social and ecological limitations which almost certainly also work to impede productivity.

Certainly, I'm not the only one. Is it not fair to say that research in #FutureAgriculture must consider not only the economic limitations of moving towards productivity transformation, but also the ecological and social limitations embedded within context-specific research?

The remaining presentations continued to build upon this theme, offering robust and innovative research that addressed many facets of productivity limitations. Mary Lubungu, from the University of Hohenheim, outlined specific governance challenges in the distribution of livestock vaccinations in Zambia, offering both short-term and long-term solutions for improvement in governance mechanisms. Christoph Reiber, also from the University of Hohenheim, stressed acknowledging the socio-economic position of goat farmers in Brazil when developing drought adaptation strategies. His call for implementation of technological and management improvements in tandem, seem to have potential application for adaptation strategies in agroecosystems far outside of just animal husbandry.