Media
Can Insurance Drive Sustainability? Incentivizing Climate-Smart Farming in Northern Ghana
This current blog is prepared by Linda Busienei und Lilian Waithaka and shares experiences and lessons learned from activities in Northern Ghana in October 2024, focusing on how agricultural insurance can incentivise climate-smart farming through partnerships, financial incentives, and sustainable practices like minimum tillage and drought tolerant seeds.
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SLM in SSA Highlights of 2024 and Outlook for 2025
In this blog an annual overview of 2024 is giving including insights and highlights from across the projects as well as an outlook into activities for 2025.
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Strengthening Implementation-Oriented Research
This current blog, prepared by Dr. Peter Asare-Nuamah shares insights from a panel discussion held at the 25th Anniversary International Conference of the Center for Development Research (ZEF) University of Bonn, to shed light on implementation-oriented research.
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Science and Stories: A Journey to the 2025 Global Forum for Food and Agriculture
This current blog, prepared by Dorcas Sanginga Alame from the University of Bonn, shares her experiences at the GFFA Science Slam, which she won with her story of 3 farmers, of land, and of a future shaped by access to resources. Link to livestream recording GFFA 2025 Science Slam ((c) BMEL)
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Understanding farmers' decisions: activities in northern Ghana
This current blog, prepared by Dr. Javier Miranda from the University of Bonn, shares experiences and lessons learned from a number of carefully planned activities in northern Ghana in October 2024, including an expert workshop, the training of enumerators and implementing a questionnaire.
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Strengthening agricultural resilience in Senegal: key insights from a field mission
This current blog, prepared by Dr. Hycenth Tim Ndah from the University of Hohenheim, shares key insights and consequent recommendations from a field mission conducted by the regional project COINS in May 2024. The full field mission report can be found here.
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UNCCD COP 16: Another setback for multilateral environmental and resource protection
Original post on IDOS Blogs Senior researcher at IDOS, agricultural economist and German representative on the UNCCD Science and Technology Committee, Dr. Michael Bruentrup reflects on last week’s negotiations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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UNCCD COP16 Side Event: The Role of Youth in Innovation for SLM
This current blog, co-authored by Kingnidé Wilfrid Adjimoti and Aiveen Donnelly, shares a recent project highlight of an official UNCCD COP16 Side Event, which was jointly organised by the INTERFACES team at IDOS and the GEO LDN, hosted by the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Ghana and run by GIZ.
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Geotools for smallholder farmers
This current blog written by PhD candidate at the Ruhr University Bochum, Stefanie Steinbach from the COINS regional project, discusses the question how digital tools and geodata can support smallholder farmers in West Africa to promote sustainable land use.
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Understanding local perceptions of land tenure security in Northern Benin using Mental Models
This current blog, collaboratively written by the DecLaRe colleagues from PIK and WASCAL, discusses a recent research effort in Northern Benin, where a unique mental model methodology to collect data has been employed to explore how different local communities’ groups perceive the benefits, limitations and border of holding an ADC.
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Insights from the ITD Conference 2024
This current blog prepared by Dr. Eefje Aarnoudse, shares insights on good practice in transdisciplinary research funding on the bases of a workshop series with experts from the global North and South, culminating in a panel session as the International Transdisciplinary Conference in Utrecht.
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Tropentag 2024 (KM4AgD)
This current blog summarises key messages from the pre-conference workshop at Tropentag 2024 in Vienna and invites all workshop participants and friends of the BMBF funded projects to join in upcoming Knowledge Cafes.
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Fertilizer Microdosing
This current blog shares insights from the DecLaRe project on fertilizer microdosing to increase cereal production in heavily leached soils.
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Fufu Workshop with the Minodu Team
What is the Fufu workshop about? Fufu is a traditional dish from Togo and many other African countries. In the workshop, you will be introduced to the art of preparing Fufu, break a bit of a sweat, taste something delicious, and along the way, gather some impressions from Togo. Spoiler: It won’t look anything like the picture, because generative Artificial Intelligence really has no idea about Fufu.
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Building Bridges: Soldering for Climate Change Awareness
The workshop aimed to draw attention to the multi-faceted impacts of climate change by mediating knowledge through a hands-on approach with DIY electronics in which we soldered LEDs on a custom circuit board and thereby learned about the various regions of Togo in sub-Saharan West Africa.
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Building across Horizons
This current blog shares insights from a collaborative workshop that the Minodu project team held in Togo in March 2024. The aim of the Minodu project is to process existing knowledge on the effects of climate change in a user-friendly way. Creating local networks and developing concrete approaches to solutions together with rural communities and students from the University of Kara is at the heart of the project.
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An Eventful Month of June
June 2024 has been particularly eventful, as members of the INTERFACES project hosted many insightful events, but also participated in several key conferences dedicated to addressing some of the most pressing global issues.
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Annual Meeting of the COINS Project
The COINS project meeting, held in Bonn from June 26 to 28, 2024, was conducted in a hybrid format with approximately 20 participants attending in person and an additional 15-20 participants joining online from Senegal, Ghana, and Kenya. The purpose of the meeting was to provide project updates, deliver presentations, and discuss the project’s objectives.
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Special Issue: Science in Support of Combatting Land Degradation
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and in recognition of the World Desertification and Drought Day, the INTERFACES team at IDOS and the NGO “Let’s Plant!” co-organised a panel discussion and interactive market place on 18 June 2024. This evening event gave space for organisations and people engaged in combating desertification, soil degradation, and drought to come together and exchange ideas, share their experiences, and build connections.
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Institutionalising collaboration through InfoRange Community Committees in Namibia and Kenya
Mobile pastoral livestock production is a knowledge and information intensive production system integrated within overall rangeland management. In InfoRange, we seek to enhance information access to support pastoralists in their management decisions and practices concerning grazing and animal health, by co-developing digital tools.
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Socio-economic Survey of Farmers in the Senegal River Valley
The objective of the COINS project is to promote sustainable intensification practices in both Senegal and Ghana. Initial ground activities involved a socio-economic survey in the Podor and Dagana departments of the Senegal River Valley (SRV), to assess the farmers’ perceptions of agricultural innovations and knowledge of their economic and social conditions.
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Highlights from 2023 and Planned Activities for 2024
This first blog of 2024 will introduce the projects and summarise a selection of highlights from the past year along with some examples of planned activities for the next year.
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Connecting Climate Knowledge Across Continents
As part of the Minodu project a hybrid collaborative university course was held simultaneously at the University of Kara, Togo and the University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany over the winter semester 2023/24.
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