"The sustainable intensification of agriculture represents a central strategy for action to increase food security in West Africa in the long term," explains Stefanie Steinbach, part of the COINS project team at the Ruhr University Bochum. COINS (Co-developing innovations for sustainable land management in West African smallholder farming systems) aims to contribute to this by identifying and disseminating suitable techniques and measures, taking into account local conditions.

From 30 January to 1 February, a three-day kick-off workshop was held at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich to launch COINS. The discussions of the 14 African and German partners focused on the design of so-called real laboratories in the project regions in Senegal and Ghana, where approaches are tested and developed together with the users. An important contribution to the dissemination of these approaches is made in the COINS consortium Tier 3 "Advising" under the leadership of Dr. Valerie Graw (AG Geo-Fernerkundung, Prof. Dr. Carsten Jürgens) with the working group Interdisciplinary Geoinformation Sciences (Jun. Prof. Dr. Andreas Rienow). Here, by integrating digital technologies such as modelling, data science and earth observation, training materials for various user groups are produced and recommendations for action to political decision-makers are formulated to support the transfer of knowledge.

COINS is funded by the BMBF under the funding code 01LL2204E from 2022-2026.

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