Field Notes — Monthly

Issue No. 02 · October 2026

A short season roundup: what we planted, what we learned, and what's growing in the plots this past month.

Vor Ort

Missionen

Mission site photo

Grafting for Protection of Natural Parks

MaMaBay, Madagascar

Grafting workshops were held to teach local Malagasy smallholders how to properly graft agroforestry trees for maintenance. This is part of conservational project with the Wildlife Conservation Society chapter in Madagascar to create Dynamic Agroforestry (DAF) buffer areas as a means of protecting natural parks.
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Mission site photo

Changing Attitudes from Slash-and-Burn to Slash-and-Mulch

Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta, Colombia

An initiative to help the indigenous Arhuaco move towards slash-and-mulch to retain field quality without denigrating indigenous customs and way of life. The mission was conducted alongside the Asoarhuaco Association.
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Kalender

Events

Demnächst

2027 (vorläufig)

Internationaler Kurs zum Thema DAF-Management

Live-Veranstaltung zum Thema DAF-Management im Hinblick auf die Umsetzung. Weitere Informationen folgen zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt.

Lesen

Forschungsbereich

Blog

Naturschutzorientierter Kakaoanbau: Eine Fallstudie zur dynamischen Agroforstwirtschaft

A closer look into ECOTOP's joint project with WCS Madagascar on how DAF is being used as a buffer zone to separate farmlands from protected ecological zones.

Check out our impact →
Konferenz
Paper

Dynamische Agroforstwirtschaft ohne Brandrodung und ohne Einsatz externer Betriebsmittel für den Anbau einjähriger und mehrjähriger Kulturen in den Tropen

Our in-depth analysis on the impacts of slash-and-burn compared to slash-and-mulch that was presented at the 6th World Congress of Agroforestry.

Read the paper →
Briefing

Verbesserung des Schnitt- und Wassermanagements in Kakao-Anbausystemen der dynamischen Agroforstwirtschaft (DAF)

A look into the expansion of the greater 'Scaling Cocoa Sustainability' project with research on how high canopy pruning affects cocoa productivity across Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador

Take a look →

Der DAF Tracker

Making Monitoring Easier and Effective

Would you like a more effective way of keeping track of how new DAF plots are doing? The DAF tracker is a tool capable of monitoring and recording changes of DAF plots in real time. Made with farmers in mind, the DAF tracker can run on any smartphone with offline capabilities.

Learn more here
Crop of the month

Kulturpflanze des Monats

Kakao

Theobroma cacao L.

ECOTOP's staple crop. The fruit that is eventually transformed into delectable chocolates grows in shaded systems with tropical climate and high annual rainfall. While West Africa is the primary source of this fruit globally, declining yields and erratic dry seasons threaten consistent supply chains. We possess decades of experience helping smallholders convert their plantations into resilient Dynamic Agroforestry systems and have worked with several partners globally such as HALBA, Lindt, Tradin Organic and others.

Learn more about cocoa→