During the last two weeks of September (2023), TUM’s Chair for Agricultural Production and Resource Economics (PuR) members visited Colombia and Ecuador. Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), this visit corresponds to the development of the Network on Climate-Smart Agriculture: Integrating Biodiversity and Ecosystem Conservation (Net-CSA Bio).

During the first stop of the tour, the PuR representatives visited Bogotá to meet representatives from Colombia’s National Biodiversity Institute (Instituto Humboldt), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Coffee trading company Racafé,  UNIANDES and El Rosario Universities and a local developer of sustainable agriculture technological solutions (Innovakit). A few days later, the PuR members traveled to Medellin to teach in the Summer School entitled  “Biodiversity, Bioeconomy, and Climate Change.” The course was designed and taught closely with EIA University, the Technological University of Pereira, and EAFIT University. Nineteen graduate students and practitioners, including two master students from TUM, attended the course.

The final stop was Quito, Ecuador, where cooperation opportunities in the fields of Bioeconomy, Natural Resource Management, and Rural Development were discussed with researchers from Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and Escuela Politecnica Nacional (EPN). This visit was funded by the Bayerisches Hochschulzentrum für Lateinamerika (BAYLAT) and planted the seeds for developing further collaboration opportunities with Ecuadorian universities.