President of ATSAF introduces controversial issues at Tropentag

De-Registered User — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:07:29 +0000

With only one day to go, Professor Dr Asch, president of ATSAF, is looking forward to the event that can be seen as a ‘hub of discussion’. ‘We can cause shifting paradigms’. The German based organization ATSAF, the Council for Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural Research, is organizing the Tropentag this year and combines the expertise of development oriented agriculture research in the tropics and subtropics. With ‘people on the margin’ as a central theme of the Tropentag 2011, there are a lot of scientific issues that will stir up the debate and may be controversial. Asch: ‘I’m pretty sure that we will have a lot of interesting keynotes and discussions at the conference. How to empower people who are marginalized through globalization, climate change, food insecurity and life style, such as the nomadic ethnical groups? This will be an important discussion point.’ Food insecurity But there is more, according to Asch. ‘The debate about bio energy versus food will be controversial. Furthermore, there is a whole discussion going on about what the meaning is of food insecurity. Do we have to go to local smallholder decentralized systems or do we have to emphasis large production units? What are the benefits and constraints?’

Tropentag 2019 - Student blog - Prof Dr Asch

President of ATSAF introduces controversial issues at Tropentag