Claas Nendel

Claas Nendel is co-head of the ZALF Research Area „ Simulation and Data Science“, in which he also leads the working group on „Landscape Modelling“. A studied geo-ecologist (Braunschweig, Germany; Ås, Norway), he received his PhD from Braunschweig in 2002 and qualified for lecturer (Habilitation) at Berlin University of Technology in 2014. Since 2020 he is jointly appointed professor with the University of Potsdam. With more than 25 years in agricultural research, Prof. Nendel has specialised in integrated modelling of water, nitrogen, and carbon dynamics, crop growth, and farm economics. His primary focus is on the carry-over effects within crop rotations and their implications for yields, emissions and soil health, also across large areas with remote sensing data as input. Prof. Nendel has served as the President of the European Society for Agronomy and as chairman of the German Soil Science Society plant nutrition section and currently chairs the Climate Change platform within the German Agricultural Research Alliance and leads various modelling activities in international networks, including AgMIP and ISMC. He is furthermore affiliated with the Global Change Research Institute in Brno, Czechia.

He is going to make a presentation titled "How does climate action look like on fields, and how do we know that it matters?".

In order to feed the world sustainably, we need to constantly review the technologies and concepts we use to produce food and how we can exploit the potential to further increase nutrient and water use efficiency and reduce pesticide use to protect the environment and climate. The political framework for these efforts has already been established, but further measures are needed to meet new challenges. Policymakers are increasingly relying on scientific findings, with experiments, theories and simulations forming an important interface. Experiments provide empirical evidence, theories offer conceptual understanding, and simulations enable predictions and scenario testing, which together enable informed decision-making. Simulation models are powerful tools that help us understand complex agricultural and environmental systems, but they still have limitations when it comes to capturing all the complexities of the real world. Therefore, experiments on various scales remain essential, complemented by continuous environmental monitoring using satellites and other large-scale measurement systems to track changes and impacts worldwide. This lecture begins with global challenges, but then gradually breaks them down to the field scale in order to highlight the challenges of observation and their significance for modelling concepts. It discusses how both methods can provide meaningful information for political decisions and how research on a field and landscape scale can contribute to a balanced joint design of climate-related measures. The lecture reflects on the role of scientists in this context and concludes with a call for objective, evidence-based findings for sound policy and the question of how we can further promote social awareness and urgency without undermining the integrity of science.

Davide Cammarano

Davide Cammarano is a Professor of Environmental Crop Science at the Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University. His scientific expertise includes precision agriculture, agronomy, application and development of crop models, and climate change impacts and adaptation in agriculture. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and postdoctoral experience from Queensland University of Technology and the University of Florida (USA). He is currently working on evaluating the agronomic and environmental efficiencies and implications of site-specific fertilization at field level. Through this work, funded by NovoNordisk Foundation where his is the main PI, he aims at developing a nitrogen management system that minimizes nitrogen losses in arable farming. This is achieved by combining sensing of soil and crop at high spatial and temporal resolution with crop-soil models. And evaluated in farmers’ fields. At the same time, he is also applying agricultural system models to evaluate the value of agronomic adaptation in northern Europe (PRECILIENCE project). He also coordinates a Horizon EU project (SOILRES) and participate as WP Leader in other EU-funded projects. He is currently the Chief Editor of Precision Agriculture (Springer Nature) and the President Elect of the International Society of Precision Agriculture.

He is going to make a presentation titled "System-based Precision Agriculture for Sustainable Crop Production".

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer mismanagement in agriculture leads to serious environmental issues, including nitrate leaching and greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the availability of digital tools since the 1990s, their application to N fertilization has largely failed — partly due to disconnected research and the complexity of translating science into practical field-level recommendations. This project proposes a framework to bridge these gaps through strategic and tactical N management, combining high-resolution soil and crop sensing with crop-soil models and a digital twin approach to enable real-time monitoring and future state predictions. A core component is a long-term On-Farm Experimentation and Research infrastructure engaging farmers and other key stakeholders to generate the data needed for better decision-making. The project aims to reduce environmental footprints while preserving economic viability, and its outcomes include a validated site-specific N management system, stronger interdisciplinary collaboration, and capacity building through education and an international research network. In the long term, the work seeks to equip farmers and policymakers with the tools to improve crop production while reducing climate and environmental impacts.

Eric Justes, PhD & Research Director (HDR)
CIRAD (Agricultural Research for Development)

His research background is Agronomist and Modeler, integrating soil science, ecophysiology, agronomy & agroecology (specialist of low input cropping systems, multi-service cover crops and intercropping). Eric's main expertise concerns holistic researches on diversified cropping systems, cover crops and intercrops in temperate and tropical conditions. He has managed a research team during a decade. He is a coordinator of French & European / International projects. He is member and was head of the STICS soil-crop model team (STICS is in the Top 5 models at world level). He has work since 1989 at INRA (now INRAE) in Agronomic Research in various locations and research centers in France, and recently at CIRAD (The French Agricultural Research and International Cooperation Organization) since 2017. Right now, Eric is a Manager of Research at CIRAD as Director of PERSYST Department (Montpellier, France), also member of the governing board of CIRAD and participant in the collegial scientific direction of CIRAD.