Thomas Prade

My scientific interest is in integration of agricultural production of food, feed, bio-materials and bioenergy. Thus, my research aims at finding new ways and at developing novel production concepts to minimise social, environmental and economic costs and maximising sustainability of the overall agricultural system. In order to achieve a holistic view on imminent problems in agriculture, this research focuses on the interaction of energy, environment, technology and economy.

In my research I focus on the following approaches

1. New crops that do not compete with main agricultural food and feed crops, e.g. intermediate crops and crops grown on marginal lands, wetlands and lands taken out of normal production.
2. Multifunctional crops that compete with food and feed crops, but which still contribute to improve the overall sustainability of the agricultural system, e.g. grass-clover crops that contribute to soil organic carbon and therefore potentially increase soil productivity.
3. Multi-purpose crops, where different crop parts are used for different applications, i.e. for food, feed, material and energy, in a biorefinery approach.
4. Soil amendment with organic residues for recycling of plant nutrients and organic carbon in order to close nutrient and carbon loops by.
5. Production chain assessment with product quality feedback resulting in better interaction between suppliers/growers and buyers/end-users

I follow an interdisciplinary approach to systems analysis in cases where such an approach is likely to result in fundamental insights. For example, this may mean the use of a variety of tools for systems analysis (e.g. energy balances, LCA, soil carbon balances, nutrient balances, techno-economic assessments, GIS-based data acquisition and handling), combined with new input data from field experiments (statistical analyses).