Consumers worldwide demand more unique origin products featuring a ́connect ́ with the ́landscape... more Consumers worldwide demand more unique origin products featuring a ́connect ́ with the ́landscape‘ and land use systems producing particular qualities. Ghana is endowed with a diversity of tangible and intangible, bio-geo-physical and socio-cultural and traditional landscapes that have influenced the quality, reputation or other characteristic of several differentiated agricultural food products in specific areas giving them the potential to qualify for geographical indications (GI) labelling. However, this enormous potential has not been tapped in the same way the EU gain billions of Euros per annum from agricultural origin food products registered with protected GI-s.The custodians of such potential GIs products therefore languish in abject poverty. This paper presents preliminary results from VALOR – a research project investigating conditions under which Ghanaian origin food producers can add value by incorporating territory specific cultural, environmental and social qualities ...
The coffee research community has maintained a long ongoing debate regarding the implications of ... more The coffee research community has maintained a long ongoing debate regarding the implications of shade trees in coffee production. Historically, there has been contrasting results and opinions on this matter, thus recommendations for the use of shade (namely in coffee agroforestry systems) are often deemed controversial, particularly due to potential yield declines and farmers’ income. This study is one of the first demonstrating how several Coffea arabica cultivars respond differently to shade with respect to yield. By standardising more than 200 coffee yield data from various in-field trials, we assembled the so-called “Ristretto” data pool, a one of a kind, open-source dataset, consolidating decades of coffee yield data under shaded systems. With this standardised dataset, our meta-analysis demonstrated significant genotypic heterogeneity in response to shade, showing neutral, inverted U-shaped and decreasing trends between yield and shade cover amongst 18 different cultivars. Th...
Coffee is deemed to be a high-risk crop in light of upcoming climate changes. Agroforestry practi... more Coffee is deemed to be a high-risk crop in light of upcoming climate changes. Agroforestry practices have been proposed as a nature-based strategy for coffee farmers to mitigate and adapt to future climates. However, with agroforestry systems comes shade, a highly contentious factor for coffee production in terms of potential yield reduction, as well as additional management needs and interactions between shade trees and pest and disease. In this review, we summarize recent research relating to the effects of shade on (i) farmers' use and perceptions, (ii) the coffee microenvironment, (iii) pest and disease incidence, (iv) carbon assimilation and phenology of coffee plants, (v) coffee quality attributes (evaluated by coffee bean size, biochemical compounds, and cup quality tests), (vi) breeding of new Arabica coffee F1 hybrids and Robusta clones for future agroforestry systems, and (vii) coffee production under climate change. Through this work, we begin to decipher whether shad...
Consumers worldwide demand more unique origin products featuring a ́connect ́ with the ́landscape... more Consumers worldwide demand more unique origin products featuring a ́connect ́ with the ́landscape‘ and land use systems producing particular qualities. Ghana is endowed with a diversity of tangible and intangible, bio-geo-physical and socio-cultural and traditional landscapes that have influenced the quality, reputation or other characteristic of several differentiated agricultural food products in specific areas giving them the potential to qualify for geographical indications (GI) labelling. However, this enormous potential has not been tapped in the same way the EU gain billions of Euros per annum from agricultural origin food products registered with protected GI-s.The custodians of such potential GIs products therefore languish in abject poverty. This paper presents preliminary results from VALOR – a research project investigating conditions under which Ghanaian origin food producers can add value by incorporating territory specific cultural, environmental and social qualities ...
The coffee research community has maintained a long ongoing debate regarding the implications of ... more The coffee research community has maintained a long ongoing debate regarding the implications of shade trees in coffee production. Historically, there has been contrasting results and opinions on this matter, thus recommendations for the use of shade (namely in coffee agroforestry systems) are often deemed controversial, particularly due to potential yield declines and farmers’ income. This study is one of the first demonstrating how several Coffea arabica cultivars respond differently to shade with respect to yield. By standardising more than 200 coffee yield data from various in-field trials, we assembled the so-called “Ristretto” data pool, a one of a kind, open-source dataset, consolidating decades of coffee yield data under shaded systems. With this standardised dataset, our meta-analysis demonstrated significant genotypic heterogeneity in response to shade, showing neutral, inverted U-shaped and decreasing trends between yield and shade cover amongst 18 different cultivars. Th...
Coffee is deemed to be a high-risk crop in light of upcoming climate changes. Agroforestry practi... more Coffee is deemed to be a high-risk crop in light of upcoming climate changes. Agroforestry practices have been proposed as a nature-based strategy for coffee farmers to mitigate and adapt to future climates. However, with agroforestry systems comes shade, a highly contentious factor for coffee production in terms of potential yield reduction, as well as additional management needs and interactions between shade trees and pest and disease. In this review, we summarize recent research relating to the effects of shade on (i) farmers' use and perceptions, (ii) the coffee microenvironment, (iii) pest and disease incidence, (iv) carbon assimilation and phenology of coffee plants, (v) coffee quality attributes (evaluated by coffee bean size, biochemical compounds, and cup quality tests), (vi) breeding of new Arabica coffee F1 hybrids and Robusta clones for future agroforestry systems, and (vii) coffee production under climate change. Through this work, we begin to decipher whether shad...
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Papers by Aske Bosselmann