Samuel Levy and Lorenz Alleman receive SFIAR Award 2023

In their project "The effectiveness of corporate zero-deforestation commitments at reducing agricultural deforestation in Brazil", Samuel Levy and his team focussed on the rainforests in Brazil. The team investigated how well zero-deforestation commitments of food companies work and what loopholes exist. The focus was therefore on the so-called zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs). On the one hand, the goal of the project was to identify loopholes. On the other hand, it aimed to create a basis for developing strategies to improve the effectiveness of ZDC policies.

The SFIAR prize for the best Master's thesis was awarded to Lorenz Allemann, a Master's student of agricultural sciences at ETH Zurich. In his thesis "Nitrogen sources of Brachiaria spp. in tropical pastures", carried out in the plant nutrition group at D-USYS, Allemann quantified the nitrogen composition of soils and plants on seven smallholder farms in the Amazon region. In particular, the combination with nitrogen-fixing legumes showed a higher yield of Brachiaria grasses and thus a promising result for the local farmers.

The two prizewinners were honoured at a public awards ceremony at the BFH-HAFL in Zollikofen on 12 December. Matthieu Stigler and Federico Cammelli accepted the award on behalf of Samuel Levy, who joined the event online. We congratulate the prizewinners on their excellent work!