Determine and assess benefits/impacts and trade-offs of agroecology, and identify best practices
Agroecology-inspired approaches are increasingly raising interest among producers, consumers and policy-makers. However, their widespread adoption faces obstacles such as uncertain monetary returns, environmental impacts and legal frameworks. The impacts of agroecology interventions on cashflow dynamics, pest management, carbon accrual and many other factors relevant to the EU´s sustainability strategies are subjected to many uncertainties and risks which can only be understood and quantified through inter- and trans-disciplinary analytical methods.
Over the last years we have been developing a growing knowledge-exchange network with German farmers, citizen-science groups, private consultants, public officerss and professionals of many other sectors. We are interested in forming a consortium with other organizations which want to take an active role on facilitating agroecological transitions. Of particular interest are:
- organizations which are actively involved in transdisciplinary agroecology research, either by developing
agroecological interventions in the field themselves or by exchanging knowledge with farmers who apply them.
- organizations which can contribute with their expertise to quantify the impacts of agroecological interventions,
particularly regarding disciplines complimentary to field management and crop production, such as simulating price
dynamics of agricultural inputs/outputs, cashflows for up- and down-stream operators (seed producers, agricultural
product processors, etc.).
Our expertise can be better described under the umbrella of Topic 1. However, due to our holistic approach aimed to enable better informed decisions, we could also be interested on forming part of a consortium targeting Topic 2.
At the Horticultural Sciences Department of the University of Bonn we have expertise on:
- Applying decision analytical methods for quantifying the efficacy of agroecology interventions in many different regions of
the world.
- Transdisciplinary model development processes, including the development of digital user-interfaces.
- Agroforestry farming and value chains, and the policy and legal context in the EU, especially, in Germany.
- Impacts of climate change on fruit trees’ dormancy, particularly in Mediterranean and Central Europe's environments.
- Carbon sequestration dynamics.
- Theory of change, innovation systems and innovation scaling.
Here is the link to some of the key projects undertaken by our group: https://gartenbauwissenschaft.uni-bonn.de/research/