The 15-year cooperation between the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences CZU in Prague and the University of Agriculture and Forestry in Hue, Vietnam was newly expanded by taking on board the staff members of the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences on a recent visit to Vietnam.

Dear all, We would like to cordially invite you to the FTA TROPICAL DAY at the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences in Prague. 

The semester is divided into 2 periods/blocks (1st – weeks 1-6; 2nd – weeks 7-12) - BE CARERUL WHEN PREPARING YOUR SCHEDULE!! – pay attention to the footnotes under the each timetable!!!

Interview with Prof. Dr. Phung Le Dinh, the Vice-Rector of HUAF. By Klára Jiřičná

The last qualification round of the “Implementation of Project-Based Learning among master’s degree students in selected ELLS Universities (iPBL-EU)” projects is successfully behind us. We cannot wait to see all the winning groups in the final round in Prague during the ELLS conference!

From the 8th until the 19th of August, a summer course entitled “Plant Protection Biology: improving plant health under climate change and other stresses” was hosted by SLU Alnarp (Sweden) under the leadership of Erik Alexandersson. As a part of the course, iPBL was introduced to the students, who were divided into 6 groups and worked on 6 different case studies. At the beginning of the summer course, an introduction to iPBL and ELLS was given by Anna Maňourová, who also represented CZU in a jury on the final evaluation day, together with Svante Resjö (SLU) and Sebastian Michel (BOKU). After a very tight score between the last two groups, a team working on “Integrated pest management strategy for thrips to reduce tomato spotted wilt virus in tomatoes in Mexico” has been selected as the winner.

Big congratulations to all four winning teams from BOKU, CZU, SLU and the summer course! We hope to meet you in Prague on the 23rd of September for the final presentation round and the following award ceremony. Please, do not forget to register for the conference even if you only want to attend as a visitor and support your favourite team. The ELLS conference is tuition-free and offers a rich programme from all fields of Life Sciences. See you there! 

A team of experts led by prof. Van Damme of FTA CZU published the final evaluation of FAO’s Action Against Desertification that mainly operated under the Great Green Wall initiative and was implemented in 2014-2020 aiming at tackling environmental impacts linked to drought and desertification in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Fiji, the Gambia, Haiti, the Niger, Nigeria and Senegal (partly during the COVID-19 pandemic).

The evaluation involved online and face-to-face interviews, field visits in 8 countries allowing for direct observation of land restoration and livelihood activities and came to the following conclusions.