HortiBonn at UNCCD Desertification & Drought Day “United4Land, Our Legacy, Our Future” in Bonn

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) celebrated the Drought and Desertification Day and its 30th anniversary in Bonn, Germany on 17th June 2024. On this occasion, the INTERFACES project team at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) gathered land lovers and heroes from diverse backgrounds around a panel discussion and an interactive marketplace to foster exchange on the topic “Science in Support of Combatting Land Degradation”. The HortiBonn team joined this event with two posters showing a stochastic modelling approach for modelling agricultural systems and supporting the sustainability of agricultural interventions. This participatory approach incorporates the relevant risks and uncertainties into the modeling process to provide meaningful scientific guidance in scaling and policy interventions. It is a particularly useful approach that comprehensively assesses the expected impacts of innovations in complex agricultural systems. Dorcas Sanginga, a HortiBonn PhD candidate in the INTERFACES project (Supporting Pathways to Sustainable Land Management in Africa), showcased the ex-ante analysis of Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) in Northern Ghana through an impact pathway. ISFM is a sustainable intensification practice that can improve soil fertility status and increase productivity and farmers’ profits on existing land. Using the stochastic modeling approach, the farm-economic benefit of ISFM will be uncovered through the incorporation of risks, uncertainties, costs, and benefits. Dr. Cory Whitney, a HortiBonn researcher, presented a poster on ongoing research in the Nutrition Intervention Forecasting and Modelling (NIFAM) project. This project cooperates with partners from Vietnam and Myanmar to develop a scientific framework for decision support for policymakers and stakeholders on nutrition interventions in Vietnam using various modelling scenarios. At this convention, he presented the progress of the decision analysis approach on “A Land Use Decision in Peri-Urban Hanoi”.

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