Gabriel is an Agricultural Engineer from Brazil that just arrived in Belgium to start a MSc. Program in Nutrition and Rural Development at the University of Ghent. In the past years, he had some experiences with Sustainable Agriculture that significantly changed his way of understanding food production and the use of natural resources. He is looking forward to enjoy this opportunity of studying in Europe and learn about cultural and technical aspects of food production and consumption in a different continent. He is really excited to work as a Student Reporter at Tropentag as he believes this event covers a lot of the needs for enhancing agricultural production around the world, and it will be a great start for his young career abroad.

‘The motion for lunch is rejected’, ruled Joachim Von Braun of the University of Bonn wittily, when chairing the first plenary session at the Science Forum 2013. He rather carried on with the session, setting the scene of the Forum and pointing out, why sufficient lunch is also still rejected to 925 million people world wide. To answer why 15% of the world’s population suffer from undernourishment after decades of agricultural research is indeed a tough one. The vast amount of knowledge gathered during this time was obviously not enough. At the same time ‘We don’t need to know everything’, Von Braun pointed out. What we really have to know, keynote speaker Patrick Webb from Tufts University sketched - to provide everybody with the lunch they deserve. Read more A healthy lunch @ Science Forum

Urban gardeners, and those to be, got the unique chance of watching gardens speak, at the end of the very lively and fruitful day of the Tropentag 2013. In her film Speaking Gardens filmmaker Teresa Beck joins art with ecology and impressively introduces the Berlin urban gardening movement, along seven urban gardening projects. Read more

Overall, 12 student reporters are blogging, tweeting and taking pictures of the Tropentag 2012. We are from countries around the globe and have diverse research backgrounds. In the following you can find more information about us and our responsibilities: The editors are mainly writing this blog here , are blogging on facebook or tweeting on twitter . The members of this team are: Divya Rajeswari Swaminathan (India), PhD student in Developmental Studies, Centre for Developmental Research in Bonn Minette Flora Mendoza De Asis (Philippines), PhD student in Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-University Berlin Reginald Tang Guuroh (Ghana), PhD student in Vegetation Geography, UNU-EHS in Bonn Pamella Akoth Ogada (Kenya), research assistant in Plant Pathology and Entomology, University of Hannover Tina Atieno Omuombo (Kenya), PhD student in Quaternary Geology in Paleo-climate, University of Nairobi and University of Paris 6

"Being a student reporter teaches you how to bring across information throughout a lift ride." Senior student reporter Minette Flora Mendoza De Asis from the Philippines talks about her experiences being a student reporter and shares some thoughts about the Tropentag in general. Minette, why would you recommend the Tropentag? Because it's a venue for young scientists to present their research and offers a platform to get in touch with other scientists. It also presents the recent debates and depicts the challenges we currently face in agriculture.

The preparatory workshop for Student Reporters has ended. We now have 12 motivated students waiting to serve YOU all the news, fun and excitement that this year's Tropentag presents.

Follow us on

...Facebook, Flickr, Twitter or YouTube

So join the fun!

your Student Reporter Team

Young scientists from European affiliated universities from around the world engaged as student reporters at Tropentag 2012

The Tropentag Conference jointly organized by the University of Gottigen and Kassel will take place on the 19th to 21st September 2012. The event themed "Resilience of agricultural systems against crises" has had over 1000 registered participants who will convene at University of Gottigen to present their research on agricultural issues dealing with livestock, plants and soils, forestry, socio economics, engineering, modeling and development cooperation. In order to capture all the activities taking place ATSAF e.V. Council for Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural Research based at the University of Hohenheim ,Stuttgart felt the need to engage student reporters from diverse backgrounds.