News Archive

Researchers are using drones to reach the hidden world of the rainforest canopy, collecting samples to identify the species living there. This collaborative project between the Environmental Robotics Lab and NGO Wilderness International will be presented at the GreenTech Festival in Berlin May 16-17.

With the Master's ceremony on April 19, 2024, a total of 109 graduates of ETH Zurich's Agricultural Sciences and Food Science study programs celebrated their successful graduation.

Organisms exposed to consistent interactions across generations often coevolve to optimize their coexistence. This occurs between plants and pollinators or hosts and parasites. However, it is not known if plants coexisting over multiple generations in a community evolve to avoid competition and boost individual fitness. A study conducted by Anja Schmutz and Christian Schöb at the Agricultural Ecology group at ETH Zurich tackles this question.  

Michaela Jung, a postdoc in a joint project of the Fruit Breeding Group at Agroscope and the Molecular Plant Breeding Group at ETH Zurich, has been awarded the Professor Albert Soenen Prize for her doctoral thesis. She developed genomic approaches that make apple breeding more efficient. The award ceremony will take place on 12 June 2024 in Belgium.

It's been a few years. But when her father started keeping bees in the family garden in the Poschiavo Valley, she realised that insects were her passion. Francesca Ferrari, Master's student of Agricultural Sciences at ETH Zurich, therefore moved to Grossdietwil in the Canton of Lucerne for her professional internship. There, Andermatt Biocontrol Suisse sells, develops and researches products for sustainable plant protection.  

It abseils from a height and swings around obstacles: robot Avocado will one day manoeuvre through the canopy of the rainforest and collect data for researchers about this hard-to-reach habitat.  

Six years ago, Fridolin Stocker, Luca Costa and Yanik Costa bought an abandoned farm in the north of Zambia. Fridolin Stocker and Luca Costa had met while studying Agricultural Sciences at ETH Zurich. It took them three years to transform the land from a wasteland into a sustainable coffee farm. Today, the team is waiting for their first coffee harvest.

The research teams of Johanna Jacobi and Emmanuel Frossard, both from the Institute of Agricultural Sciences at the Department of Environmental Science (D-USYS) at ETH Zurich, played a key role in the production of the documentary film "The Green Vein". After participation in more than 20 festivals around the world, winning four and receiving two honourable mentions, the film is now released to the general public.  

Ryan Jenkins originally wanted to go to South America for his professional internship on his Master's degree in Agricultural Sciences. But then he decided to accompany his fellow student Camille Sammali on a project in Guinea, West Africa. There he learnt a lot about agroecology, but even more about communicating with people from a different culture.

Philippe Mathys has long been interested in research. The 28-year-old student of Agricultural Sciences opted for Agroscope in Tänikon in the Canton of Thurgau for his professional internship and took away important lessons about practice, politics and research.

Erich Fischer, Nicolas Gruber, Reto Knutti, Sonia Seneviratne and Johan Six are once again among this year's "Highly Cited Researchers".

"Open your eyes 2023": Until 15 October 2023, the heart of Zurich will transform into a unique open-​air photo exhibition focusing on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ETH Zurich is the scientific partner of open your eyes 2023. Discover the contributions of our researchers to each Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in detail.

After 10 years as an observer, Switzerland has become a full member of the Integrated Carbon Observation System ICOS, an European-wide greenhouse gas research infrastructure.

The Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ) awarded its Honary Medal 2022 to Nina Buchmann, Professor of Grassland Sciences at ETH Zurich. Congratulations!

The Swiss Society for Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Sociology (SGA) has awarded Charles Rees and Simon Hug, two young researchers in agricultural sciences at ETH Zurich, for their outstanding Master's theses. Another prize went to Marta Tarruella from the University of Bern.

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.

The Dandelion Entrepreneurship Award has been initiated by the ETH Entrepreneur Club and the ETH AI Center. It's aim is to recognize professors for their outstanding efforts to promote entrepreneurship at ETH Zurich. The jury consists of representatives of relevant ETH institutions, such as ETH Entrepreneur Club, ETH juniors, Student Project House and AVETH.

Nina Buchmann, Professor of Grassland Sciences at ETH Zurich, has ranked 5 in Switzerland in the 2022 "Ranking of Top 1000 Female Scientists in the World" by research.com.

In summer, the peak in atmospheric elemental mercury originates from mercury emission trapped in snow and sea ice and not from river inputs to the Arctic Ocean. This is suggested by a new study lead by Stefan Osterwalder (ETH Zurich) and Jeroen Sonke (Université de Toulouse) and co-authored by an international team of researchers investigating mercury isotope signatures in arctic rivers, ocean and atmosphere.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Helsinki highlight how games can improve decision-making around complex, multi-stakeholder climate and environmental issues.

A collaboration between the Animal Genomics group at ETH Zurich and the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USDA-ARS) investigated which methods of sequencing and assembling produce high-quality bovine genomes, how pangenomes robustly combine such assemblies, and how these new resources reveal hitherto inaccessible trait-associated DNA variants.

On 23 May 2022, our dear colleague Werner Eugster passed away after a long battle with cancer.  

On the occasion of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin and around sixty other high-ranking guests from politics, research and business visited an exhibition at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF). There, among others, the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS) gave an insight into its research in the field of agricultural sciences.

It was a bitterly cold day in January when a film team from ETH Zurich visited the ICOS measuring station in Davos. Their short film shows the station, but also the people who work there on the ground, within the forest canopy, and on the 35-metre measuring tower. CO₂ flux measurements in Davos are performed since 1997, which makes it one of the oldest flux sites globally. Mana Gharun was responsible for the station as Principal Investigator from 2019 to 2022.

The World Food System Center was established at ETH Zurich. Since its founding in 2011 and subsequent public inauguration in 2012, the World Food System Center has brought together researchers from across ETH Zurich with external partners in collaborative ways. We now celebrate these 10+ Years of Collaboration over the coming months in 2022. Please join us at the events and in the discussions!

Nina Buchmann, Professor of Grassland Sciences at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences at ETH Zurich, has been named a "Distinguished Alumna" of the School of Biological Sciences (SBS) at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.  

Grasslands are widespread and relevant ecosystems at the basis of sustainable roughage production. Plant genetic diversity (PGD; i.e., within-species diversity) is related to many beneficial effects on the ecosystem functioning of grasslands. In their recently published paper, Miguel Loera-Sánchez, Bruno Studer and Roland Kölliker report a set of 12 multispecies primer pairs that can be used for high-throughput PGD assessments in multiple grassland plant species.

Eva-Marie Meemken is our newly appointed Professor of Food Systems Economics and Policy at the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-​USYS). A warm welcome!

Plants are photosynthesizing more in response to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, find researchers from Berkely Lab and other institutions, among them Beni Stocker from ETH Zurich. Until now, it has been unknown how much land photosynthesis has increased and whether and how it is linked to the known land carbon sink. 

This is the third time that Monika Maurhofer Bringolf has been awarded the VSETH Golden Owl for her excellent teaching.  

Half of the carbon emissions released to the atmosphere by fossil fuel use are re-captured by the ocean and land ecosystems. However, we still have many open questions. A recent article in The Bulletin of American Meteorological Society (BAMS) describes for the first time the structure and functioning of the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) Research Infrastructure.

In 1871, the «Landwirthschaftliche Schule» at ETH zurich, then Polytechnic, was founded. Three professors and five students were part of the new discipline. Since then, the ETH Agricultural Sciences have left their mark on agriculture in Switzerland and abroad. Our mini Series on Explora.

At “Scientifica 21”, research groups from ETH and the University of Zurich presented their latest research. In the middle of the atrium of the ETH main building, the Institute of Agricultural Sciences presented their research for the agriculture of the future.

The 2021 young talent award of the Swiss Society for Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology (SSA) goes to Mirjam Schleiffer. In her Master's thesis, she looked at how organic and regional food is used in public catering in the city of Zurich. Other awards went to Stéphanie Vuille and Daniel Duarte. Congratulations!  

For his doctoral thesis "Reducing Pesticide Use Risks: An Economic Analysis", Niklas Möhring has won the Hans Vontobel Prize for Agricultural Sciences 2021.

The anniversary celebration "150 Years of Agricultural Sciences at ETH Zurich" enjoyed a great response. Almost 4,000 people have seen the anniversary film so far. The various webinars by researchers from the Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IAS) were also well attended. Click here for the recordings of the webinars and the press review.

"ICOScapes – Raising awareness on climate change through photographs" is the title of a virtual photo campaign of the European infrastructure network ICOS RI (Integreated Carbon Observation System Research Infrastructure). Among the visited station is the ICOS Switzerland station Jungfraujoch.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and Agroscope together with the EPF-Spinoff Gamaya have won an "Outstanding Paper Award" at the "Spectro Expo" Conference.

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".

Erich M. Fischer, Nicolas Gruber, Reto Knutti, Sonia Seneviratne und Johan Six are among the «Highly Cited Researchers 2020».  

In the midst of the ETH Zurich emergency operations, Kristy Deiner and Stefano Mintchev have taken up their assistant professorships at D-USYS. The two of them started on April 1. A warm welcome!    

As a cooperation of ETH Library Lab and the Entomological Collection of ETH Zurich, the Automated Species Identification project aims to develop a practical solution for the classification of specimens based on artificial intelligence and computer vision.

On the international women’s day, Equal! started a new series of portraits of female assistant professors at ETH. The portrait of January: Rachael Garrett, Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy in the Department of Humanities, Social and Policies Sciences and the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich.

Janine Steinmann, former student of environmental sciences at D-USYS, has won the SFIAR Master's thesis Award for her thesis "Effect of Natural and Mucuna pruriens fallow on soil properties and crop performance in Dioscorea alata (water yam) based systems in Liliyo and Tieningboué (Côte d’Ivoire) and Léo (Burkina Faso)".

Championing a type of duckweed known as wolffia: two ETH Zurich Pioneer Fellows want to introduce us to a new protein source.

Greenhouse gases are the cause of climate change. The European infrastructure network ICOS RI (Integrated Carbon Observation System Research Infrastructure) is committed to standardised measurements so that emissions can be compared across Europe. After a lengthy transition process, the measuring station in Davos now meets the high quality requirements and is an officially labelled site in the network.

By citation analysis, the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Group identifies researchers who have been recognized by the research community around the world for over a decade in the form of exceptionally high citation rates. A total of 18 ETH professors made it onto the "Highly Cited Researchers" list this year. A third of them - 6 in all - belong to the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS).

Since September 2019, Benjamin Stocker has been Assistant Professor for Computational Ecosystems Science at ETH Zurich. Welcome, Benjamin!

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 Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IAS) within ETH Zurich’s Department of Environmental Systems Science creates and promotes knowledge about agricultural ecosystems and their complex interactions with the environment and the society. The professorships allocated to the IAS join forces for a sustainable agriculture. In various short film portraits, the individual research groups present themselves to a broader audience.

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.

What do coffee agroforests, older cows, wheat zinc content, soil management, and dual-purpose chickens have in common? All of them are highlighted in a series of five short videos that the World Food System Center released in the past weeks. 

At this year’s Meet the Talent event, more than 150 donors interacted with students supported through the Excellence Scholarship and Opportunity Programme (ESOP). Marc Chautems, an agricultural sciences student in his tenth semester, who also attended the event, presented his "Detour" project. Thanks to an ESOP scholarship, he was able to realise the work.

The NZZ accompanied a group of high school students during their LERNfeld learning activity on a farm. This specific group studied the chewing behavior of ruminating cows and analyzed cow dung. Through the different LERNfeld learning activities and tutored by a young researcher, school students learn about climate change, agriculture and biodiversity and get first hand exposure to environmental sciences methods.

The Swiss Society for Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology (SSA) has awarded two scientists of the Agricultural Economics and Policy group for their excellent Bachelor's and Master's thesis.

Ninety-eight graduates, who had successfully completed the ETH Zurich’s Agricultural and Food Sciences Master’s degree programmes, attended the graduation ceremony, held in ETH Zurich’s main auditorium on 15 March 2019. Women undoubtedly ruled the day at the recent ceremony.

ETH Zürich facilitates basic research on the digitalization of agriculture – «Smart Farming». A short film features research efforts of different research groups in Agricultural Sciences (IAS) and from the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS).

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

Dr. Timothy Sykes has been awarded the Hans Vontobel Prize for his doctoral thesis in the field of molecular plant breeding. In his dissertation, he investigated an important genetic mechanism using perennial ryegrass as an example.

At a SNSF media conference, ETH researchers have presented the results of the National Research Programme «Sustainable Use of Soil Resources» (NRP 68). In an experiment lasting several years, Emmanuel Frossard, President of the NRP 68 Steering Committee, and his team observed how soil regenerated after it had been compacted by a tractor. They found that one single incident of compaction reduces yields for more than a decade.

Monika Maurhofer has been a senior scientist and lecturer at the Institute for Integrative Biology (IBZ) for more than 18 years. Recently she was appointed to Adjunct Professor. We took this as an opportunity to get to know her a little better.

How many earthworms live in this soil? How often does this cow chew? Is the insect on this apple tree a pest or beneficial insect? This summer, the Agora project PubliFarm invited the public to do their own research. During five days of research on farms in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, an interested audience was given the opportunity to find out for themselves.

Emilia Schmitt has written her doctoral thesis in the Sustainable Agroecosystems group at D-USYS under the supervision of Prof. Johan Six. For her thesis, in which she compared local and global food in terms of sustainability, she has received the 30th Hans Vontobel Award for Agronomy.  

«Sequencing entire animal populations for genome-enabled precision breeding»: The inaugrual lecture of Prof. Hubert Pausch was about the question of how genetics will change cattle breeding now and in the future.

Johan Six, Sonia Seneviratne and Ulrike Lohmann are «Highly Cited Researchers 2017».

Professor Emerita Silvia Dorn has been appointed as Co-Chair of the International Entomology Leadership Summit, by the Entomological Society of America (ESA).

Prof. Nina Buchmann has been nominated by Switzerland as a member of the Committee on Scientific Planning and Review of the International Council for Science.

Dr. Dörte Bachmann has been honoured with the Hans Vontobel Award for her outstanding doctoral thesis in the area of agricultural sciences. In her thesis, she examines why biomass production of diverse grassland is larger than that of less diverse grassland.

The ETH Board has awarded the title of Adjunct Professor of ETH Zurich to Dr. Werner Eugster, senior scientist and lecturer at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences.