News 2018
The Decider: 5 Ways to Choose Sustainable Chocolate
Read external page this article to make sure you can make a difference by choosing sustainable chocolate. Johan and other experts provide their insight into the chocolate business.
Wilma Blaser receives the SFIAR award 2018
Wilma Blaser, postdoctoral fellow in the group Sustainable Agroecosystems of Johan Six, receives the SFIAR award 2018 of the Swiss Forum of International Agricultural Research for her work on optimizing agroforeststs for development in West Africa. The award ceremony took place in Berne on December 10. Congrats to Wilma!
Our RUNRES Project receives funding from the Swiss Development Cooperation
The Sustainable Agroecosystem Group, chaired by Prof Johan Six, and their partners were awarded funding by the Global Programme Food Security of the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) for their project “The rural-urban nexus: Establishing a nutrient loop to improve city region food system resilience (RUNRES)”. The project will be conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Ethiopia and South Africa in collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the University of Arba Minch (UAM), and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). The objective of the project is to co-establish safe, efficient, and socially acceptable innovations to close the nutrient loop and install a circular economy to improve the resilience of people in the targeted city region food systems. This objective will be addressed in a first phase of 4 years in pilot studies in the four city food regions and if successful will be scaled up in a second phase of 4 years.
Christian Andres receives Josef G. Knoll European Science Award
The external page fiat panis foundation selected Christian's dissertation “Transdisciplinary systems research to reduce the cocoa swollen shoot virus disease in Ghana“ for the Josef G. Knoll - European Science Award. The objective of the award is to encourage young academics whose research focuses on improving food and nutrition security. The award ceremony took place in the scope of the Tropentag conference in Ghent, Belgium, on 17. September 2018. Congratulations to Christian!
New website online for the Congo Biogeochemistry Observatory
The Sustainable Agroecosystems Group is part of the Congo Biogeochemistry Observatory group. Check out our work on the external page new website of the Congo Biogeochemistry Observatory
Dominique Barjolle interviewed by the French branch of SRF (Radio Television Switzerland) on the Fair Food Initiative
The interview is in French on the topic external page Le modèle de l'agriculture par spécialité remis en question par une initiative agricole
Urban Food Futures blog
Emilia Schmitt's recent paper is quoted in the Urban Food Futures blog titled "external page Defining local: the quest continues"
Johan Six interviewed by SRF (Radio Television Switzerland) on organic crop production
The interview by SRF is embedded in a radio broadcast on the reasons and history of the consumer trend towards organic products in Switzerland. The broadcast is titled "Wie die Nahrungsmittel-Industrie versucht, gesund zu sein."
Part of the broadcast is available Download here (MP3, 2 MB).
Soil weathering: The puppet master of carbon cycling?
Soils are important for carbon (C) storage and thus for possible mitigation of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. In a recently published Download Nature Geoscience article (PDF, 211 KB), scientists took a closer look at the drivers of C storage in soils. The study along a 3-million-year old terrace sequence in the Californian central valley shows how soil weathering controls and influences crucial parts of terrestrial C cycling.
Johan Six receives the GDPE Distinguished Ecologist award by the Colorado State University
The youtube videos featuring his two talks at Colorado State university are listed below.
Our Kenya project is featured in an article
Our Kenya project is nicely featured in this popular article on external page Soils and Resilience.
Emilia Schmitt wins the Hans Vontobel Agronomy Award
We congratulate Dr. Emilia Schmitt on winning the Hans Vontobel Agronomy Award for her dissertation on comparing the sustainability of global and local food. For more information on the award and the impact of Emilia's dissertation, watch external page this video provided by Vontobel.