News Archive

Have you ever wondered where your morning coffee comes from? If it's Brazil, chances are it hails from the state of Minas Gerais, where more than a third of the world's exported coffee is cultivated. Researcher Marie Sigrist’s travels in this region inspired her podcast "Catuaí". In our conversation, the social anthropologist explains what motivated her to share her stories from the heart of coffee production.  

Dr. Wilma Blaser, postdoctoral fellow in the group Sustainable Agroecosystems of Johan Six, has won the SFIAR award 2018 of the Swiss Forum of International Agricultural Research for her work on optimizing agroforeststs for development in West Africa.

Dr. Christian Andres of the group Sustainable Agroecosystems of Johan Six, has received one of the three Josef G. Knoll European Science Awards 2018. The prize was awarded on September 17, 2018 at the Tropentag at the University of Gent, Belgium.

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.

The fifth Scientifica 2017 from 1 to 3 September also showed research projects from the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS). With a total of more than 30,000 visitors, the ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich were awarded with a great audience.

A price for the «Most Catchy Presentation» of the Imaging Spectroscopy Workshop 2017 organized by the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories went to Dr. Helge Aasen from the Group of Crop Science at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IAS).

The oceans, forests and soils store carbon dioxide and therby help to slow down global warming. Can we rely on their help in future, was the major question addressed in the SNF Magazine of March 2017.

Dr. Hubert Pausch, Assistant Professor of Animal Genomics at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, has been given an award to promote his reseach by the H. Wilhelm Schaumann Foundation.

Drosophila suzukii – commonly called the spotted-wing drosophila – is a vinegar fly that has already caused considerable economic damage in Switzerland. In a joint project, ETH Zurich and Agroscope are looking at how best to tackle this.