Students of the MSc in Geo Information Science and Earth Observation had the opportunity to visit Herenboerderij Usseler Es, a local organic community farm, as part of their "Global Challenges and Local Actions" course. The visit was organized to help students understand the connection between climate change and agricultural practices, specifically focusing on greenhouse gas emissions from different farming methods.
Today, we interview Armaan Farooqui from India and Meysam Mohammadi from Iran to learn more about their fieldwork trip and the real problems they had to face to help the farm mitigate its emissions.
Climate change at the local level
The course focuses on approaching global challenges through local actions. For this particular project, the students narrowed down the broad issue of climate change to examine farm emissions and agricultural sustainability.
"Climate change was our main challenge, and our local problem to address it was farm emissions," explained Armaan. The group specifically focused on potato farming, comparing intensive and organic agricultural approaches.
Source: Herenboeren Usseler Es
Meysam elaborated on their approach, "The global challenge was climate change, and we narrowed it down to a local level to see how GHC emissions produced by farms are affecting this change. From farms, we narrowed it down even more to potato crops. In this context, we researched two different types of farming: intensive farming and organic farming."
A surprising discovery
The students began their project with certain assumptions about organic farming being more environmentally friendly. What they discovered, however, challenged their initial hypothesis.
"We started with this hypothesis that natural organic farming is better," Meysam reflected. "We looked at the papers, and we are a little bit biased in favor of finding papers that show that organic farming is producing less GHC emissions. But after we met with Robert [the farmer], we realized that we had to narrow it down deeper."
One of the most surprising revelations for the students was seeing heavy machinery at the organic farm. "I was quite surprised to see heavy machinery there," Armaan recalled. "In my head, when I think of organic farming, I don't think of that. So it was surprising to see tractors and pumps and greenhouses there."
First-hand learning
The students had two separate visits to the Usseler Es: an initial field trip to observe the operations and a follow-up interview with the farmer. The second visit proved particularly useful.
Source: Herenboeren Usseler Es
"Robert, the professional crop farmer in the community farm, provided us with many insights we didn’t expect," Meysam admitted. He provided critical data for their project, including information on fuel consumption for different farming activities. "I think that meeting gave us around maybe 60-70% of our data. With papers, we gathered the remaining 30%. That in-person meeting changed everything," said Meysam.
Teamwork and challenges
The project involved collaboration among their group, the Energy Detectives, with 3 more students who divided tasks according to their specializations.
"The teamwork process worked well. We had arguments, we had final decisions, and everyone had to compromise, but we achieved a great result," explained Meysam. "At the start, we asked each member about their strength and their specialization. I was confident with QGIS, so I focused on the maps. Armaan wanted to practice creating a website, and he did that and so on."
The students faced several challenges, including difficulty finding specific data on pesticide ingredients and time constraints that prevented them from examining different potato varieties and soil types.
Source: Herenboeren Usseler Es
The main surprise from the analysis in the project was that organic potato farming comes with higher GHG emissions compared to more common high-input farming. Because in organic farming no chemicals are used to kill weeds, mechanical methods, such as deeper ploughing, need to be practiced. This results in more disturbance of the soil, more decomposition of organic material, and higher emissions. However, although this looks initially as a rather negative impact, we need to look at it from a wider perspective that includes a wider range of sustainability aspects.
So, “initially, we were going to recommend to policymakers the benefits of organic farming, but then in the end, we ended up with a rather more nuanced conclusion: In the long term, organic farming is better for soil fertility, but it comes at the expense of emissions," Armaan explained.
Key learnings
For Armaan, the project offered valuable professional development: "This was my first major hands-on group project at ITC. I learned the soft skills of working together, handling conflict, and compromising. So it was like an internship for me."
Meysam emphasized the importance of managing scope in research projects: "At the start you think you can do something big, but when you go deeper, you realize that alright, it's better to start from a smaller goals then if you see you can achieve it, then you can just broaden your view."
More information
Every academic year, students at the ITC Faculty engage in practical learning experiences that connect global challenges with local actions.
Click here to learn more about the MSc programme in Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation.
