Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Switzerland

The research team of FiBL, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland, applies agro-ecological approaches of farming and assesses their effects on soil quality since 24 years. The Department of Soil Sciences is participating and coordinating various international projects (ISCB, BIOFECTOR, TILMAN-ORG, FertilCrop). In a previous ISCB project (Indo-Swiss collaboration in Biotechnology), AMF and PGPR bio-fertilizers were developed for wheat production on marginal soils in India, concomitantly applied with organic amendments and green manure in an integrated approach (Mäder et al., 2011). An ongoing ISCB project (BIOFI) searches for new bio-fertilizers in mixed cultures of pigeon pea-finger millet in South India. In collaboration with several African Universities and Research institutes, FiBL is running different R4D projects (IBFFP, ORM4Soil, SYPROBIO) combining disciplines of agronomy, socio-economy, social and communication sciences. Since October 2015, FiBL is mandated to establish the Organic Agriculture Section of the Abu Dhabi Farmer Services Centre, where the optimisation of dry land farming via innovative biotechnologies and agro-ecological approaches also play an important role.

Scientists involved

• Dr. Sarah Symanczik
• Dr. Paul Mäder
• Gian Nicolay

Links

• FiBL.org: Soil Sciences