The number of foreign students, especially from developing countries, has always been relatively high, and already in 1961 the Institute for Foreign Agriculture was built up and headed by Professor Josef Gabriel Knoll, a plant production specialist and later by Professor Dr. Hans Ruthenberg, an agricultural economist. Both were pioneers in development oriented agricultural research.
The climate changes caused by the eruption of volcano Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 resulted in crop failures and famine in Southern Germany and other parts of Europe. To mitigate the famine in the subsequent years, the royal couple of Württemberg had founded the Agricultural Research and Teaching Institution at Hohenheim in 1818.
German Science Council recommends to pool tropical competences in Hohenheim and Göttingen.
The state government agrees to found a center for agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics with twelve professorships in Hohenheim.
The Center for Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics is founded. It is the first scientific center at the University of Hohenheim.
Today the institute has two working groups
Today the institute has four working groups
Today the the institute has three working groups
The DFG-funded Special Research Program (SFB) "Adapted Farming in West-Africa" (1985-1999) was the first large interdisciplinary project on development-oriented research in tropical agriculture coordinated in Hohenheim and the pioneer SFB of DFG implementing extensive, applied agricultural research in two developing African countries, namely Benin and Niger.
First student excursion to Colombia.
