From farm to fork
Research at ILR covers the whole agricultural value chain

Research at ILR

The eleven research groups and professorships of the ILR conduct research with the aim to provide evidence-based support to all actors of the food system in order to enable a transformation towards a sustainable bioeconomy. 

Research at ILR covers the whole agricultural value chain from farm to fork as well as related market dynamics, social and environmental impacts, and agri-environmental policy solutions. In our interdisciplinary projects, we work in close collaboration with national and international partners, especially in Europe, Africa, North and South America and Asia.

Research groups

The topics covered in our research at ILR include:

  • the improvement of ecological and farm animal welfare outcomes of food production at farm-level;
  • the dynamics and drivers of innovation for sustainability transitions in in the agri-food sector;
  • modeling and measuring the impacts of agri-food policies;
  • the analysis and market integration of smallholder farmers in the Global South;
    the economics of climate change adaptation and mitigation in agriculture and land use / land use change decisions; 
  • the evaluation of environmental policy instruments and natural resource governance approaches; 
  • the application of economic simulation models from farm to global scale to analyze sustainability impacts and the provision of eco-systems services in the agri-food system;
  • the development and application of novel data science tools (e.g. machine learning) in agricultural and environmental economics; 
  • the analysis of consumer (and other actors) behavior in the value chains of the agricultural and food markets. 
A scientist observes seedlings.
© Colourbox

Research partnerships

ILR is active in several collaborative research initiatives, including the following.
For more details on the role of the research groups in these partnerships, please consult the groups' research activities on their individual pages.

Phenorob

PhenoRob is leading the world in research in robotics and phenotyping for sustainable crop production. Our vision is to transform crop production by optimizing breeding and farming management through developing and deploying new technologies. PhenoRob addresses a real-world problem with a technology-oriented approach.

Future Rural Africa

„Future rural Africa“ is an interdisciplinary collaborative research center funded by the German Research Council (DFG) involving geographers, anthropologists, political scientists, agroeconomists, soil scientists and ecologists

DETECT

DETECT aims at improving our understanding of relationships between land use and regional climate change.

EU Projects

Project descriptions will be available soon.

Transform2Bio

In the competence platform project Transform2Bio we set focus on understanding how a social transformation process works - and what we can learn from it.

Cooperations

ILR is also cooperating with international teaching programs and trans-faculty networks on food and agriculture.

Bonn-Wageningen Cooperation  - BOWACO
©

Bonn-Wageningen Cooperation  - BOWACO

The BoWaCo double-degree program is a collaboration between the University of Bonn and Wageningen University. It allows students of either institution to complete the second year of their degree at the other institution, thereby gaining a second MSc degree.

foodnetcentertest.jpg
© Uni Bonn

Bonn International Center for Food Chain and Network Research

The Food Net Center Bonn (NFC) promotes multi-disciplinary chain and network research nationally as well as internationally and facilitates public-private partnerhsips in food chain and network research projects.

Deutsch-Taiwanische Gesellschaft für Sozialökonomie
© Uni Bonn

Deutsch-Taiwanische Gesellschaft für Sozialökonomie e.V.

DTG is aimed at strengthening the research collaboration between Germany and Taiwan and at providing policy advice in the field of agricultural and rural development.

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