Resilience of Agricultural Systems Against Crises
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Tropentag 2012 International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development Resilience of agricultural systems against crises Book of abstracts Editor: Eric Tielkes Reviewers/scientific committee: Renate Bürger-Arndt, Andreas Bürkert, Claus Peter Czerny, Alexandra zum Felde, Jóska Gerendás, Oliver Hensel, Dirk Hölscher, Christian Hülsebusch, Brigitte Kaufmann, Christoph Kleinn, Ronald Kühne, Christian Lambertz, Björn Niere, Zbynek Polesny, Eva Schlecht, Anthony Whitbread, Meike Wollni Editorial assistance: Mareike Aufderheide, Clemens Voigts Impressum Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detailierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloguing in Publication-Data (CIP) Tropentag 2011, Book of Abstracts Biophysical and Socio-economic Frame Conditions for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources: International research on food security, natural resource management and rural development, Hamburg. Hrsg.: Eric Tielkes ISBN: 978-3-9801686-7-0 Online-Version: http://www.tropentag.de Satz: LATEX 2ε Verlag: © DITSL GmbH, Witzenhausen, Germany / http://www.ditsl.org German Institute for Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics Druck: Print & Mail (PRIMA), Allendeplatz 1, 20146 Hamburg Oktober 2011 - 1. Auflage Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Ohne ausdrückliche Genehmigung der Hrsg. ist es nicht gestattet, das Buch oder Teile daraus auf fotomechanischem Weg (Fotokopie, Mikrokopie) zu vervielfältigen. The authors of the articles are solely responsible for the content of their contribution. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright owners. Preface The annual TROPENTAG, the largest European conference of scientists working in Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural and Natural Resource Management, rotates between the universities of Bonn, Göttingen, Hohenheim, Kassel-Witzenhausen, Hamburg, ETH Zurich and the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. On-going organisational support for the event is provided by the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL) in Witzenhausen and the Council for Tropical and Subtropical Research (ATSAF e.V.) in co-operation with the GIZ Ad- visory Service on Agricultural Research for Development (BEAF). Mr. Dirk Niebel, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is the patron of TROPENTAG 2012. TROPENTAG provides a unique platform for scientific and personal exchange for a wide spectrum of the science and development community from students to junior and senior scientists and to development experts and funding organisations. This development-oriented community values TROPENTAG as an interdisciplinary scien- tific event with attendees from 80+ countries contributing to the stimulating debate. TROPENTAG 2012 takes place on the central campus of the Georg-August- Universität Göttingen on 19-21 September. It has been jointly organised by the Fac- ulty of Agricultural Sciences, Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology, Georg- August-Universität Göttingen and the Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences, Uni- versity of Kassel (Witzenhausen). The theme of the 2012 conference is “Resilience of Agricultural Systems Against Crises”. This is a particularly relevant theme in today’s world with most of the 2 bil- lion poorest people who face on-going food insecurity being smallholder farmers liv- ing in tropical environments. Sustainably producing food and fibre in the face of climate change, population growth, urbanisation and social change requires innova- tive and systems based research to help people living in rural and urban areas build resilient and food secure livelihoods. With the current focus of many development initiatives on intensification strategies for favourable environments, research and de- velopment efforts are lacking to support the highly vulnerable communities located in fragile, remote and usually semi-arid to arid regions. It is in these environments 3 that the effects of inadequate system resilience are most acute. This conference will provide the platform for discussing and planning new research and development ini- tiatives. From the many abstracts received, a panel of reviewers selected contributions that present new information on: • How agricultural systems can be made more resilient to cope with crises such as high climate variability, volatile markets, biotic and abiotic stresses. • What do resilient farming systems look like? • Scientific approaches that are practical, innovative, scalable and integrative. • Model approaches that provide insights to system resilience. These aspects will be addressed in TROPENTAG 2012 by several internationally renowned keynote speakers, via 19 oral sessions presenting almost 100 talks and 24 guided poster sessions presenting 360 posters. A special session to commemorate the International Center for Tropical Agriculture’s (CIAT) 45th anniversary is also planned. Our special thanks goes to the Universities of Göttingen and Kassel for providing substantial financial and logistical support, and TROPENTAG’s regular donors whose financial contributions ensure conference costs are kept low. We welcome you to the university town of Göttingen and wish you an enjoyable and rewarding stay The organising committee of the TROPENTAG 2012 Prof. Dr. Anthony Whitbread (Göttingen) Prof. Dr. Andreas Buerkert (Kassel-Witzenhausen) Dr. Esther Fichtler (Göttingen) Dr. Christian Hülsebusch (DITSL - Witzenhausen) Prof. Dr. Christoph Kleinn (Göttingen) Prof. Dr. Eva Schlecht (Kassel-Witzenhausen/Göttingen) Dr. Eric Tielkes (DITSL - Witzenhausen) Dr. Christian Lambertz (Göttingen) Prof. Dr. Dr. Claus-Peter Czerny (Göttingen) Göttingen, September 2012 4 Message Almost one billion people worldwide suffer from hunger. Another billion are mal- nourished. This is an unacceptable situation. By 2050, we will probably have to feed nine billion people while taking care not to overstretch our planet’s ecological capacity. Hunger and malnutrition have many causes. One central cause is undoubtedly the fact that agricultural productivity in most developing countries is too low to give the majority of the rural poor adequate income opportunities or to ensure food security for them. This is the very factor that we need to address. So when I assumed office in 2009, I made rural development and food security a political priority of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) again, considerably in- creasing the Ministry’s financial commitments in the sector. The volume of relevant commitments is now more than 700 million euros a year. This is more than 10 per cent of my Ministry’s total budget. The Tropentag is a renowned international forum for development and agricultural research experts to share information and experience as well as knowledge. Numer- ous organisations and experts from a variety of fields from more than 80 countries are represented. The event provides a good networking opportunity, especially for younger experts. It is intellectual input of this kind that makes a huge difference in whether development policy and development cooperation are successful or not. So it was my pleasure to accept the role of patron for this Tropentag . The three departments that are jointly organising this year’s Tropentag (the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and the Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology of Göttingen University and the Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences of Kassel Uni- versity) all look back on a long tradition of research and teaching. Time and again, they have accepted new challenges. And they are leaders when it comes to interdisci- plinary research. This year’s topic, “Resilience of Agricultural Systems against Crises”, is a highly top- ical issue. Small farmers in particular are vulnerable to risks such as drought, floods, erosion, plant disease and pests. But if small farmers’ capacity is enhanced in line with needs, there are many ways in which they can deal effectively with such risks. 5 Development-oriented agricultural research can contribute decisively to enhanced re- silience, for example through the breeding of drought-tolerant plant varieties. For many years now, the BMZ has been supporting development-oriented agricultural research at international agricultural research centers with an approximate 20 million euros per year. In all these projects, partners from German research institutions are part of the effort. We will further increase our efforts to transform the valuable, en- couraging outcomes of international agricultural research in such a way that they can inform agricultural practice in our partner countries. This is especially true for the out- comes of agricultural research with regard to adaptation to climate change. I clearly highlighted this need in the Ten-point Programme for Rural Development and Food Security which I presented in the beginning of this year. We have now launched a Technical Cooperation project to address this issue. I wish the Tropentag every success. I am convinced that its participants’ dedication to research, their capacity for innovation and their creativity will contribute a great deal to the improvement of global food security. Dirk Niebel Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development 6 Contents