Towards multi-functional agro-ecosystems
promoting climate-resilient futures

September 16 - 18, 2026
organised by
Universities of Kassel and Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

 

 

 

Title of presentation: Managing Soil Fertility in Africa – why, where, how, and by whom?

 

Eric Smaling (1957) is a specialist on integrated soil fertility management in Africa. He has a PhD from Wageningen University, The Netherlands and was also a full professor there and at ITC/University of Twente. He also served as a member of parliament in The Netherlands for 10 years. Currently he manages development programs in Africa for IFDC, and runs a foundation in Kenya (www.rarevrienden.org).

 

Title of presentation: tbc

 

Serena Ferrari is a socio economist at the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD). She specialises in the field of pastoralism and value chain approaches, focusing on the impact that value chains have on a given (agro)pastoralist territory, particularly in terms of sustainable development, livelihoods, and reducing inequalities. She is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title of presentation:tbc

 

As Director of the Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation, Patrick is committed to pioneering and applying multidisciplinary approaches to studying long-term relationships of our species and the Earth system, including research across the latitudinal tropics. This includes combining state-of-the-art approaches in field- and lab-based archaeological science, remote sensing, palaeoecology, history, computational archaeology, and land use modelling. In 2021, Patrick was awarded the Heinz Maier Leibniz Prize, the top award for early career investigators in Germany and the first time that it has been awarded to an archaeologist and in 2024, he received the Thuringian Research Prize from the Thuringian Ministry of Economics, Science, and Digital Society for fundamental research. As part of his aims to make his work accessible to the public, Patrick also wrote the popular book ‘Jungle: How Tropical Forests Shaped the World and Us’ published by Penguin/Viking Random House in 2021.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title of presentation: tbc

 

Alice Laborte is one of IRRI’s women scientists working to help achieve food security and support rice-based systems around the world. She leads IRRI’s research unit on the Spatial Transformation of Landscapes, which uses geospatial analysis and modeling to map and assess trends in landscape transformation and generate evidence, actionable information, and insights to inform policy, research prioritization, and targeting and assessment of technological innovations among others.

Alice also leads the Pest Risk Identification and Management (PRIME) Project which aims to improve pest management in the Philippines. She works with a multidisciplinary team of experts from IRRI and Philippine government agencies such as the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), and the Department of Agriculture.