News Archive

Samuel Levy and Lorenz Allemann have won this year's SFIAR Award. Both researchers focussed their award-winning research work on the Amazon region. Congratulations!  

Every year, ETH Zurich awards the ESOP scholarship to excellent students from different backgrounds. This year, two students, Nina Bili Rossi and Abheepsa Nanda decided to use their scholarships to pursue a Master’s degree programme at the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS). This week, we are presenting Nina, who came to ETH to study agricultural economics.

Soil biodiversity is crucial for a healthy soil, which is critical for a healthy society. But how can that insight be translated into effective policy on soil? The European Union is currently preparing the first ever piece of international legislation to protect soil health. In Science, a group of scientists of the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI), including Johan Six from ETH Zurich, outline some of the challenges the new law will face.

Soils are complex systems that harbor diverse, microscopic lifeforms called the microbiome. Interdependent constituents of the soil microbiome regulate key functions in agroecosystems that determine soil fertility, crop productivity and stress tolerance. A new review article describes the complex interactions between soil microbiome, soil structure and sustainable agriculture.

ETH Doctoral Scholarship fellow Michelle Nay has won the SFIAR PhD Award for her project "Improving smallholder farmers’ food security through disease resistant common beans".

The course "Environmental Problem Solving" has won the well desired KITE Award this year. However, of the 34 teams nominated for the award, several other projects were also dveloped in the Departement of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS).

Extensive networks of drains, pipes and tiles have enabled food production on much of the world’s most productive cropland. To ensure the urgently needed sustainable intensification of agriculture, these drainage systems are due for replacement and even expansion, emphasize researchers from Iowa State University, University of Kentucky and ETH Zurich in a new study recently published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

The IPCC special report on "Climate Change and Land" was released on August 8. Edouard Davin from the Land-Climate Dynamics group at the Institute for Atmosphere and Climate (IAC) was a lead author of the report and an author of the Summary for Policymakers.

Phosphate supplies are limited and found in only a few countries. Mining and transport of this nutrient are costly. It is therefore becoming increasingly important that phosphorus be recovered and reused regionally, and Switzerland, with a functioning phosphorus recycling economy, can lead the way.

The project RUNRES, led by researchers of the Sustainable Agroecosystems Group and the Transdisciplinary Lab of ETH Zurich will be working in four different African countries and on four different food value chains: coffee, cassava, banana and vegetables. The goal of RUNRES is to close the nutrient cycle in city regions and build so-called circular economies, where nutrients from waste are recycled to be used in food production.

«Nobody can rescue the world all alone,» says Prof. Nina Buchmann in an interview in the Schweizer Familie on 21 February 2019.

«What will we eat tomorrow»? was the title of Nina Buchmann's presentation about the World Food System Center in Schaffhausen.  

Ruben Kretzschmar and Heini Wernli, two of a total of ten researchers at ETH Zurich, have received a prestigious Advanced Grant this year from the European Research Commission (ERC). Both research teams have now commenced their work. In this report we are initially introducing one of the projects: IRMIDYN led by Ruben Kretzschmar.

Precision plant cultivation opens up new horizons for agriculture. In order to promote innovation in the Bachelor's degree programme, the Crop Science Group at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IAS) has developed a new course as part of the ETH Studio AgroFood. The course «Innovation in Precision Agriculture» will be offered starting this Autumn Semester and will be graded for semester credit points.

Innovative technologies offer great potential for making agriculture more sustainable. At an event on «Smart Farming» at ETH Zurich on 15 June, Prof. Achim Walter explained what this could look like in the future.