The talk entitled “sustainable management of resources in agriculture in a fragile and resource poor context” was presented by Jutta Schmiz who works with GIZ on a sector project aimed at sustainable management of resources and agriculture. She started her talk by explaining that fragile ecosystems are either caused by nature or by human interference and that this usually affect ecosystems, making them unable to achieve their basic functions properly. She also noted that agriculture is not only a part of the solution but can also be part of the problem. According to her, agriculture can contribute to the solution but if done in the wrong way (using bad farming practices), it also increases the fragility of the ecosystem. The speaker noted that fragility is not only attributable to resources but that even countries can be in fragile conditions. She explained that nations or states can be said to be fragile when there are weak institutions which fail to provide basic services to the population and this is mostly in developing countries. Such fragile nations may experience problems such as; low water availability, soil infertility and unavailability of other resources needed for agriculture and healthy livelihoods. Global challenges in Agriculture According to Jutta Schmiz, agriculture faces numerous challenges which may slightly vary in different parts of the world. She mentioned some common ones as; 1. Rapidly growing population 2. Changing diets especially with more meat requirements