Scientific committee

Conference chairs

Prof. Dr. Frank Ewert
Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany
Frank A. Ewert is Scientific Director of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF, http://www.zalf.de) in Müncheberg and Professor of Crop Science at the University of Bonn (https://www.lap.uni-bonn.de/), Germany. An important focus of his research has been on the analysis and modelling of crop systems in relation to climate change, food security and sustainable intensification. More recently he has also worked on integrated assessment modelling and on scaling up crop system responses to farm, landscape, national and global level.

Peter Feindt

Photo: Erik Stolze

Prof. Dr. Peter Feindt
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Peter H. Feindt is Professor of Agricultural and Food Policy at the Albrecht Daniel Thaer Institute for Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research addresses a broad range of questions in agricultural and food policy, in particular links to environmental policy, sustainability transitions and the resilience of farming systems. Related interests include environmental and technology conflicts; public participation and conflict management; strategic communication, policy discourse and narratives; and inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.

	Prof. Dr. Paolo Bàrberi Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy Paolo Bàrberi is Professor in Agronomy and Field Crops at the Institute of Life Sciences, Sant’Anna School of Advances Studies in Pisa (SSSA). He leads the SSSA Agroecology research group and has coordinated the International PhD Programme in Agrobiodiversity in 2013-2019. His research is focused on Functional Agrobiodiversity, Weed Ecology and Integrated Weed Management, and the design of agroecological low-input and organic cropping/farming systems through the combination of genetic, species and habitat diversity at field, farm and landscape scale. He has (co)authored ca. 330 papers. He collaborates with the FAO, the European Commission, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies on several issues related to sustainable agriculture research and policy. He has been Scientific Secretary, Vice-President, President and Past-President of the European Weed Research Society (2002-2015).
	Prof. Dr. Riccardo Bommarco SLU, Sweden
	Dr. Laurène Feintrenie CIRAD, France Laurène joined Cirad within the Forests and societies research team in 2011, to work on interactions between forests, agriculture and livestocks. After 4 years in Indonesia and 3 years in Cameroon, she has been focusing on the Central American region in partnership with CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) and ICRAF (World Agroforestry Center) since 2016. Her work focuses on family farming in forested landscapes and on collective and participatory management of natural resources and territories.
	Prof. Dr. Robert Finger ETH Zürich, Switzerland Robert Finger is Professor of Agricultural Economics and Policy at the ETH Zurich. His research is at the interface of agricultural sciences and economics. Research foci are i) risk and risk management in agriculture, ii) the evaluation and design of agricultural and environmental policies, iii) climate change and agriculture, and iv) the adoption and diffusion of new technologies.
	Prof. Dr. Katharina Helming Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany Katharina Helming co-chairs the research area „Agricultural Landscape Systems“ at ZALF and is professor for sustainability assessment at the University for Sustainable Development in Eberswalde (university of applied sciences). Her background is in agricultural and soil sciences. Her research deals with emerging drivers and frame conditions for agricultural systems and related sustainability impacts, in particular of soil management. Katharina conducts research in Germany, Europe, Central-Asia and China.
	Dr. Zvi Hochman CSIRO, Australia Dr Zvi Hochman is a Chief Research Scientist in CSIRO Agriculture and Food. He is a systems agronomist with expertise in exploring productivity frontiers in rain fed cropping systems at field to national scales and in managing climate-related crop production risk. He is currently researching: 1. How to best quantify, map and diagnose the causes of the gap between actual and potential yields of individual crops and cropping systems in Australia’s rain-fed environments; 2. Farm level adaptation of cropping systems to a variable and changing climate; and 3. Crop yield forecasting at multiple scales.
	Prof. Dr. Patrick Hostert Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
	Prof. Dr. Felix Kienast ETHZ & Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Switzerland Felix Kienast's research focuses on the interactions between landscape change and ecological as well as socio-economic characteristics. He is actively involved in several national and international landscape monitoring projects, has written important publications on landscape monitoring and is the author of the first comprehensive MOOC on Landscape Ecology on EdX. Through his activity as President of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) (2011-2015), Felix Kienast has an extensive international scientific network. He has written more than 150 papers and communications in the field of landscape ecology.
	Prof. Dr. Anthony Kimaro ICRAF, Tanzania
	Dr. Linda Lilburne Manaaki Whenua Landcare research, New Zealand
	Prof. Dr. Bettina Matzdorf Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany Bettina Matzdorf leads the working group "Governance of Ecosystem Services" at ZALF and is professor for "Ecosystem Services" at the Leibniz University of Hannover. Her background is environmental science with a focus on institutional and economic aspects. Her research deals with ecosystem services and financial incentive instruments within a broader institutional setting. Bettina conducts research in Germany, Europe, Latin America and China.
	Dr. Sandrine Petit National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), France Sandrine Petit is Research Director at INRAE and Deputy Head of the Agroecology Unit in Dijon where she leads the Sustainable Weed Management Research Lab. Her background is in landscape ecology and community ecology. Her research focuses on the field-scale and landscape scale drivers of functional biodiversity and natural pest control in arable agriculture. She is also interested in the design of agroecological systems, from field to landscape scales. She is currently leading several projects based on the French national long-term monitoring network on ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes SEBIOPAG. She is an editor of the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.
	Dr. Moritz Reckling Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany Moritz Reckling is a PostDoc in cropping systems at ZALF and associated with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. His background is in crop production systems. His research deals with the design of diversified (legume-supported) cropping systems and the assessment of yield stability. He uses and develops a range of methods including on-farm and on-station experiments, participatory approaches and modelling to increase the resilience of agricultural systems.
	Dr. Pytrik Reidsma WUR, Netherlands Dr. Pytrik Reidsma is Associate Professor at the Plant Production Systems group at Wageningen University. Her research deals with the sustainability and resilience of farming systems. She has expertise in integrated assessment, considering impacts of different drivers (climate, policy, markets, technology) on different dimensions of sustainable development (economic, environmental, social, institutional) and resilience. In this work, she uses both quantitative and qualitative methods, combining agronomic and economic approaches.
	Pablo Tittonell CONICET-INTA, Argentina
	Prof. Dr. Christine Watson SRUC, United Kingdom Christine A Watson is Professor of Agricultural Systems in the Department of Rural Land Use at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), UK and holds the visiting Wallenberg Professorship in the Department of Crop Production Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. Christine is a soil scientist focused on the management of soils and nutrients in organic and conventional agricultural systems at a range of scales from local to continental. She has worked in a range of grassland, arable and tree-based systems across Europe and is particularly interested in the development of legume based cropping systems.
	Dr. Heidi Webber Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany Heidi Webber is broadly trained as an agronomist and irrigation engineer in Canada and Uzbekistan. Her research interests include food security, climate risk management and adaptations to water scarcity for cropping systems. Her methodological expertise in on-farm experimentation, as well as process based model development and assessments.
	Prof. Dr. Anthony Whitbread ICRISAT, Tanzania Anthony Whitbread is the Research Program Director of the research program Innovation Systems for the Drylands (ISD) and the Country Representative for Tanzania at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT https://www.icrisat.org/), based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Prof. Whitbread leads a diverse team of scientists across south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in an innovation systems mode devising strategies to manage climatic risk, soil fertility and identifying market led development opportunities. This role was preceded by long research career in the crop-livestock systems of semi-arid Australia, SE Asia and Southern Africa and a period as Chair, Crop Production Systems in the Tropics at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany.
	Prof. Dr. Lin Zhen Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Lin Zhen’s background is natural resources management. Her research focuses on the impact assessment of ecological restoration technology on ecosystem services and local development, and analysis of ecological carrying capacity. She is actively involved in several national and international research projects, with special interests in working at the household level by using participatory impact assessment approaches. Dr Zhen has published more than 150 papers and several books or book chapters. She conducts research in China, Germany, UK, Japan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia.

Local organising committee

Prof. Dr. Katharina Helming, ZALF
Dr. Heidi Webber, ZALF
Prof. Dr. Klaus Müller, ZALF
Prof. Dr. Bettina Matzdorf, ZALF
Dr. Moritz Reckling, ZALF
Sibylle Krickel, ZALF
Sabrina Weinert, ZALF
Heike Schobert, ZALF