Prof. Sir Gordon Conway Gordon Conway is Professor of International Development in the Centre for Environmental Policy of the Imperial College of London and holds five honorary degrees and fellowships. Trained in agricultural ecology, he attended the universities of Bangor, Cambridge, West Indies (Trinidad) and California (Davis). In the 1960’s he was a pioneer of sustainable agriculture, developing integrated pest management programs for the State of Sabah in Malaysia. He joined Imperial College in 1970 setting up the Centre for Environmental Technology in 1976.

This is a sample of some of the great mixed cropping, agroforestry and biofuels oral presentations at Tropentag Strategies to Use Biofuel Value Chain Potential in Sub-saharan Africa to Respond to Global Change Enhancing Low-productivity Farming in Tanzania and Linking to SMEs – Stefan Sieber Some of the most significant global drivers stem from energy demands. This study examined new strategies to improve value chains and biofuel potential in order to provide communities in Sub-Saharan Africa with multiple energy services. The study took place in Tanzania, however global applications of the findings was one of the overall objectives. One way to improve energy demands in developing countries is though linking small scale farmers with small- to medium-scale enterprises. This research project worked with stakeholders in order to develop feasible strategies to maximize profit. The output from this collaborative effort was the development of global scenarios (applications in other countries), biomass production, consumption patterns, as well as a participatory biomass value chain. The objective of the research was to conduct a sustainability impact analysis and an information system for policy/decision support.

Albert Engel, from GTZ told us his opinion about the tropentag. He considers Tropentag as an avenue to look up broad spectrum of research and to link up to the people who are doing the research. Accoding to his opinion it is an important event to identify the bottlenecks, information and research need and an opportunity to get in contact with people who are interested in development cooperation. Watch his inspiring comment about the student reporter, an innovation of the Tropentag 2010