21.12.2022
The ZALF scientist Prof. Heidi Webber has been invited as a member of the External Advisory Committee (EAC) of the “Excellence in Agronomy” initiative for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Heidi Webber holds a professorship in "Integrated Crop Systems and Modelling" at BTU Cottbus and is an expert in climate change adaptation and climate risk assessment at ZALF.
The EAC is composed of a group of eight international experts from science, business and policy relevant to agronomy in the global south. Their functions are primarily to advise on the broad scientific agenda of the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative and aid in decisions around use cases, strategic Research and Development, as well as acting as external reviewers for EiA documents, promoting the initiative and identifying opportunities for new partnerships and funding.
In the context of global food insecurity, soil degradation, biodiversity loss and critical climate variability and change, the challenges on agriculture are great. Agronomy concerns cropping system management around soils, nutrients, water, pests and diseases, and weed management. For agronomy to deliver viable solutions, it needs to be tailored to the environmental, economic and social conditions facing farmers. A particular challenge is identifying locally tailored agronomic practices for the huge diversity of farming systems. In this context, Excellence in Agronomy is a collection of scientists with broad expertise from across the CGIAR system with a collective ambition to deliver modern agronomy solutions at scale to promote more sustainable and resilient smallholder farming systems.
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