Earlier this month we finished a eight week field campaign for the Root2Fork project. The Root2Fork project brings together various living labs within the context of studying multi-strata agro-forestry as a solution to preventing and reversing poor soil quality. The project’s aim is to explore the socio-economic feasibility of these more diversified agricultural systems within the context of soil remediation, food security and diversification of agricultural systems.
In addition to these socio-economic metrics, the project collects properties on root and plant health across various multi-strata agro-forestry systems.
I’ve finally finished some light engineering for the bioacoustic monitoring work within the Root2Fork project this summer. The work requires installing monitoring stations to capture the (acoustic) biodiversity across various multi-strata agroforestry systems. The test rig is currently running in the garden with the others in storage.
Some valuable lessons learned are that it seems: 1. good hardware stores are scarce these days, 2. sourcing from large vendors which would still serve smaller businesses and low volumes is key 3.
BlueGreen Labs is happy to announce our partnership with the Root2Fork project (project lead: Prof. dr. Farah Assaad at the Technical University of Munich). The project aims at measuring the impact of regenerative agriculture through multi-strata agroforestry systems, from both a economic (feasibility) and scientific perspective, and this across a large latitudinal gradient spanning the European continent. In this context, we will provide critical scientific (field) support; including logistics, soil sampling, bioacoustic and remote sensing solutions.
I’m happy to have taught and coordinated another session of the Remote Sensing for Plant Health course for the EU Better Training for Safer Food initiative. This year the course featured a stronger UAV (drone) focus, with extensive hands-on demonstrations of aerial sampling of plant material, automated missions and hyper-spectral hardware setups.
In addition, the basic theoretical background of remote sensing was provided including an understanding of the physics of the electromagnetic spectrum in the visible and near-infrared and its relation to vegetation indices.
Enset Xanthomonas wilt (EXW), caused by Xanthomonas vasicola pv. musacearum (Xvm), severely impacts enset cultivation in the Ethiopian highlands. Controlled net trials demonstrated that healthy enset plants developed EXW symptoms after exposure to leafhoppers that continuously fed on Xvm-inoculated plants. Given the omnipresence of the leafhoppers in several of the studied enset-production landscapes, best management remains the timely and complete removal of all diseased plants, the use of disease-free planting materials, and clean garden tools, which in turn will also keep the risk of secondary leafhopper-vectored transmission at a minimum. Extension services should emphasize the increased EXW transmission risk in areas with high leafhopper populations as part of an integrated EXW management strategy.
It was a privilege to contribute as a panel member at the ECDPM event on “AI for Social Good and Africa’s Strategic Choices”!
It was a critical conversation about balancing AI innovation with the governance and strategic choices necessary for Africa’s equitable development. Thank you to my fellow panelists for the rigorous exchange: Melody Musoni, PhD, Jane Munga, Amb - Prof Bitange Ndemo, and Maja Fjaestad. And special thanks to Chloe Teevan for moderating!
We provide protocol development and data processing expertise in support of this IFPRI led project to mitigate basic risk in smallholder farmer insurance.