DITSL does applied research on knowledge management, learning, and collective action, facilitates multi-stakeholder processes, and employs collaborative learning methods with actor groups to co-identify improvement options and foster rural innovation in different agricultural systems and value chains.

DITSL has gained a reputation for doing innovative and practice-oriented research with small-scale farmers and pastoral livestock keepers in Africa, Latin America and Asia, often with active involvement of other actors along food supply chains, including for example traders, food processors and consumers.

Our projects apply a multi-actor approach and combine technological and social innovations. Gender and equity considerations are an integral part of our work in order to create accessible solutions.

Low external input livestock systems, smallholder farming systems, and organic farming systems are fields of particular interest and expertise.

DITSL's research projects and networks:

• The Collaborative Project Land Management Sub-Saharan Africa:
  Increasing efficiency in rangeland-based livestock value chains through machine learning and digital technologies (InfoRange)
• lProvenance research on the East African holdings of the collection of the Ethnological Museum Witzenhausen
• Sagris Enhancement of Postgraduate Studies on Sustainable Agriculture and Future Farming Systems
• (Post)-colonial livestock breeding in Namibia: Historical, socio-ecological and genetic transformations
• Empowering Jua Kali to combat mycotoxins in Kenya’s maize supplies: A participatory design approach with transdisciplinary knowledge integration
  
• NaviNut: Enhancing women´s agency in navigating changing food environments to improve child nutrition in African drylands (October 2020 - September 2023)
• EcoPath: Exploring transition pathways towards agroecological farming in Argentina (funded by DAAD and Foundation fiat panis; 2018 - 2022)
• ValueBrand: Value chain development through branding pastoralists‘ small stock for process- and product-quality in Marsabit County” (funded by Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Christensen Fund)
• UPGRADE Plus: Decentralised postharvest processing of underutilised species into innovative value added products for improved food and nutrition security in West Africa (supported by BMEL / BLE)
• ICDD "International Centre for Development and Decent Work" (a centre of excellence for development research funded by DAAD; 2009 - 2019)
• AgroFlux: Gesellschaftlich induzierter Paradigmenwechsel für die adaptive Transformation der Deutschen Agrarwirtschaft: Status quo and Needs assessment. (funded by BMBF)
• ReLOAD: Reduction of Post Harvest Losses and Value Addition in East African Food Value Chains (funded by BMBF-GlobE; 2013-2018)
• Trans-SEC: Innovating Strategies to safeguard Food Security using Technology and Knowledge Transfer: A people-centred Approach (funded by BMBF-GlobE; 2013-2018)
• Adaptive Capacity: “Supporting the vulnerable: Increasing the adaptive capacity of agro-pastoralists to climatic change in West and Southern Africa using a transdisciplinary research approach” (funded by BMZ)
• CarbonQuest: Livelihood diversifying potential of livestock based carbon sequestration options in pastoral and agro-pastoral systems in Africa (funded by BMZ)
• GrassNet "Cross-continental network for sustainable adaptation of grassland systems vulnerable to climate change" (funded by DAAD)
• SuLaMa: Participatory research to support sustainable land management on the Mahafaly Plateau in southwestern Madagascar (funded by BMBF)
• Watercope: Supporting national strategies to cope with increasing land use intensity, dwindling water resources and threats to ecosystem services in the transborder Altay-Dzungarian region of Mongolia and China (funded by IFAD)
• ClimaLearn: Mutual learning of livestock keepers and scientists for adaptation to climate change in pastoral areas (Small grant founded by BMZ)
• Living Landscapes: "Conservation of cultural landscapes through diversification of resource-use strategies and technologies for agro-ecosystems in mountainous Southwest China" (funded by BMBF)
• AnGR Management: "Improving the Livelihoods of Poor Livestock-keepers in Africa through Community-Based Management of Indigenous Farm Animal Genetic Resources" (funded by BMZ)
• Urban Food: "Challenges and Opportunities for Nutrient Efficient Agriculture in West African Cities" (funded by VolkswagenFoundation)