The "Agricultural systems of the future" at the DAFA conference "Agricultural research on climate change"
March 11-14, 2024 | University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
From March 11-14, 2024, the conference "Agricultural Research on Climate Change" hosted by the German Agricultural Research Alliance (DAFA) took place at the University of Potsdam on the Griebnitzsee Campus. The congress was kicked off by patron Cem Özdemir, Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture. In numerous lectures and workshops, the current state of scientific research on key topics in agriculture in the face of climate change was presented and discussed. One focus was on promising approaches for future production systems and the use of agricultural landscapes, as well as the topic of climate protection.
On March 13, 2024, the coordinating office, together with four consortia of the BMBF funding line "Agricultural Systems of the Future," organized a session entitled "The Transformation Paths of the 'Agricultural Systems of the Future' - Transformative Research within a Funding Line." The coordinating office opened the workshop with a general overview of the transformation research of the "Agricultural Systems of the Future." Subsequently, representatives of the consortia RUN (Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Schmuck), NOcsPS (Dr. Beate Zimmermann), DAKIS (Prof. Dr. Sonoko Bellingrath-Kimura), and CUBES Circle (Prof. Dr. Heike Mempel) gave keynote speeches on transformation within their projects or the funding line. Participants then had the opportunity to actively discuss research questions on transformative research and develop solutions in mini-workshops. Questions addressed included: What communication tools/public relations do we need to drive the transformation forward? and How can the regional transformation process succeed?
The small groups arrived at exciting results, which were subsequently presented. Dr. Rebecca Klopsch from the coordinating office considers the workshop a success:
"The workshop has shown us that the exchange with external scientists and practitioners brings additional ideas and input to advance the transformative work of the funding line 'Agricultural Systems of the Future'."