Tell us more about you. I am Markus. Currently, I live in Berlin, and stressing about my Master Thesis which I will write next year. It will be in the field of agroforestry. My goal is to specialize in the promotion of indigenous rights and subsistence agriculture. How did you get here? I am a student at University of Kassel in Witzenhausen. There I got acquainted with the topics around development aid and sustainable nutrition. Kassel has a very dedicated team, which motivated me to do public relations for international agriculture. What are your tasks here at Tropentag 2017? I would like to critically discuss the content at Tropentag by writing articles that provide an authentic insight in what is being done for small-scale agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. What do you expect from Tropentag 2017? My expectations are not high, actually. It won't be life changing. I find the real world is about economics and less about social and cultural values. Still, I hope that I can learn something either from the speakers or our team. Maybe, there will even be some controversy I will write about .

A team of scientists have added activated charcoal to goats' feed, utilizing the charcoal-laden faeces in attempts to decrease the amount of leaching of nitrogen and carbon in poor performing sandy soils. The results were mostly positive. But what is activated charcoal, why are they feeding it to goats, and how might it benefit soil fertility? (read more)