On the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, CENSA (The National Center for Animal and Plant Health, Cuba) expressed its gratitude to Agroscope for the many years of successful collaboration between the two institutions. On behalf of CENSA Director Nivian Montes de Oca, Head of Agroscope Eva Reinhard was presented with an award.
Agroscope and CENSA’s cooperation focuses in particular on two joint SNSF research projects on organic pollutants in soils, ‘Soil-Q’ and ‘PERECUSO’.
During the first SNSF Project, ‘Soil-Q’ (2012–2016), the two research institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in September 2015 for joint research work. At the award presentation, CENSA proposed the renewal of the 2020 MoU for a further five years.
“Cooperation with CENSA has been extremely valuable for us. In the current SNSF Project, ‘PERECUSO’, we are investigating e.g. plant-protection product residues in Cuban and Swiss potato production” confides Thomas Becheli, Head of Environmental Analytics and Organic Trace Analytics at Agroscope. “This cooperation at an international level allows us to obtain an in-depth understanding of the behaviour of plant-protection products in the soil and in the environment, and to compare decomposition in tropical and temperate climatic regions. We look forward to further cooperation with CENSA.”
Presentation of the award, including a message of greeting from Director Nivian Montes de Oca to Agroscope, was by PhD student Brizeidi Peña Suarez, who is currently completing her internship at Agroscope as part of the ‘PERECUSO’ project. Further participants were Isabel Hilber (Executive Project Manager) and Thomas Bucheli (Principal Applicant for both SNSF Projects), as well as Corinne Jud (Head of the Method Development and Analytics Division).
