Young RELOAD scientists present at Tropentag conference

PhD student Cory Whitney (SP4) and MSc student Eva Hilt (SP7) presented first results of their research at the Tropentag conference which took place in Prague, Czech Republic, from September 17-19, 2014. 

Mr Cory Whitney from the Faculty of Life Sciences of the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Kleve/Germany works on post-harvest losses (PHL) in fruits and vegetables. One of the main aims of his work is to find out about varieties with unique post-harvest traits, and to describe and assess local post-harvest practices. At the Tropentag, he presented a poster on species diversity and post-harvest practices in home gardens in southwestern Uganda. Mr. Whitney established agrobiodiversity inventories for 34 home gardens and recorded the related local knowledge on plant uses and post-harvest practices held by the gardeners. The home gardens in the study region contain high levels of agrobiodiversity and include varieties with interesting post-harvest performance. Continuous, flexible harvesting over a longer period and sun drying were the most common management practices applied by the gardeners. Mr. Whitney’s co-author and supervisor is Prof. Jens Gebauer who holds the Chair for ‘Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems with Special Focus on Horticulture’ at the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Germany.

See the poster >>here.

See Tropentag conference proceedings >>here

Ms Eva Hilt is a MSc student at the University of Göttingen. Her research focuses on smallholder farming as human activity systems to better comprehend Kenyan dairy producers' own understanding of PHL. She presented results of an activity analysis on milking and milk handling based on fieldwork done with farmers of Nakuru district, situated north-west of Nairobi, Kenya.

Her co-authors and supervisors are Maria J. Restrepo Rodriguez, Dr Margareta A. Lelea and Dr Brigitte Kaufmann, all from the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL), Witzenhausen/Germany.

See presentation >>here