Kedar Nepal

The two years of Master of Science in International Horticulture (Economics) at Leibniz Universität Hannover with DAAD scholarship has finally come to an end with excellent grades. During this two years study (2019 - 2021), I did a Master's research on Voluntary Sustainability Standards in Coffee and their impacts on smallholder farmers. The year 2019 started normally unlike previous years but was seen with unprecedented Covid -19 affecting daily lives, studies, and social life. However, with all the hardships and adapting to new conditions and rules, the academic journey of a Master's degree has been accomplished by me in Germany.

It is a pleasure to participate in a virtual conference of Tropentag 2021 with the theme of Towards shifting paradigms in agriculture for a healthy and sustainable future . With the diversity of professionals from varying backgrounds with bottom-up and interdisciplinary approaches, as a young researcher, it is a great opportunity to broaden the knowledge in this sector and contribute my own research in the form of poster presentations. The annual interdisciplinary conference on research in tropical and subtropical agriculture, natural resource management and rural development (TROPENTAG) is organised as a virtual conference by the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany and ATSAF e.V., Germany with a few live sessions directly from Hohenheim and Prague, Czech Republic.