Internationale Landwirtschaft (in Eng.)

The lecture provides a fundamental understanding of the environmental and socioeconomic basis of international agriculture and related food production systems. The emphasis is on an understanding environment- crop-management interactions underlying adapted cropping systems in different parts of the world.


1st Unit:
Organizational planning

Overview on international agriculture
=> „The yield gap“ – world agricultural production and population growth
=> Key agricultural regions for main food crops
=> Land ownership structure and agricultural production


2nd Unit:
World agro-environmental zones: Climate, soil and crop production
=> Main productivity constraints for world food production


3rd Unit:
Management improvement in international agriculture
=> The upcoming water crisis and water saving irrigation for dry regions
=> No tillage farming for soil fertility
=> Fertilization and the potential of organic agriculture


4th Unit:
FAO strategies for world agriculture
=> Food supply chains: Raising production, supply and income
=> Sustainable intensification: Resources efficiency to solve the yield gap


5th unit
Guest lectures: Examples of specialized farming systems
=> Irrigation management for small scale farmers in Africa
=> Agro-forestry systems in Africa
=> Mixed cropping-livestock systems in the Andean highlands


6th Unit:
Country example: Brasil – between international food power and agricultural poverty
Student presentations


7th Unit:
Country example: India – an example for “take off” from subsistence to world market?
Student presentations

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