The Fiat Panis Foundation awarded the Hans H. Ruthenberg Award 2016 to a student from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and the University of Hohenheim: Steffen Schweizer analysed the soil structure and interrelated soil properties by connecting the latest laboratory methods with on-farm analyses of the SysCom long-term experiment located in Madhya Pradesh, India. The findings of Schweizer's master thesis provide important insights about long-term effects of organic and conventional farming on agro-ecological soil properties in a semi-arid environment. Together with his supervisors and co-workers, the team of researchers is currently preparing a manuscript about the processes affecting the soil fertility of a clayey Vertisol in subtropical cotton production.
This work has been conducted in the framework of the long-term systems comparison program, which is financially supported by Biovision Foundation, Coop Sustainability Fund, Liechtenstein Development Service (LED) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). A travel grant of the fiat panis foundation enabled the first author to visit India for data collection. The local partner bioRe India Limited provided great support during the field visit.
Further information
Links
- fibl.org: SysCom project
- stiftung-fiat-panis.de: Foundation fiat panis
- stiftung-fiat-panis.de: Description of the awarded work