Tropentag is an annual interdisciplinary conference on Research in tropical and subtropical agriculture, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development. Tropentag 2018 will be organized on September 17-19 by the University of Ghent, Belgium in close cooperation KU Leuven and Antwerp University (both Belgium). The conference venue will be in Ghent. All students, Ph.D. students, scientists, extension workers, decision makers, politicians and practical farmers, interested and engaged in agricultural research and rural development in transition and developing countries are invited to participate and to contribute.

Target of the conference

The Tropentag is a development-oriented and interdisciplinary conference. It addresses issues of resource management, environment, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food, nutrition and related sciences in the context of rural development, sustainable resource use and poverty alleviation worldwide.

The Tropentag 2018 conference theme

Global food security and food safety: The role of universities

Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fibre, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Its prime vocation is and should be to sustainably maintain and where needed and possible significantly improve the nutrition and health situation of people around the world. Hunger, malnutrition, and poor health are global, and increasing, development challenges. Agriculture has made remarkable advances over the last decades in increasing quantity and quality of (food) produce, but its contribution to improving the nutrition and health of poor farmers and consumers in developing countries often still lags behind. In cases where food provision is structurally guaranteed, food quality may still be a problem. Agricultural research and universities have an important role in addressing and solving both food security and food safety. They should do this in collaboration with (inter)national (non-)governmental donor and policy-oriented organisations, with respect for local, regional and global socio-economic and cultural situations, legal conditions, markets and market mechanisms, limitations and opportunities, gender equity and the natural resource environment, in order to provide for sustainable solutions. We invite you all to present elements to solving these challenges, and send in proposals for workshops, sessions and especially abstracts for oral and poster presentations around this broad theme.

Information and registration

For more information on key speakers, programme, location and registration, please visit the Tropentag website.