Dr. Wolfgang Gérald Sturny is head of the Soil Conservation Service of the canton of Berne/Switzerland since 2001, after eleven years as scientific collaborator and vice-chairman, where he particularly focused on physical soil protection by means of conservation agriculture techniques. From 2000 to 2001, Sturny was president of the Swiss Society of Agronomy. He has been a member of the board of the Swiss Soil Conservation Association (SWISS NO-TILL) since 1995, and from 2005 to 2008 he was board member and vice-president of the European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF). Sturny worked as a scientific collaborator for the Swiss Federal Research Station for Farm Management and Agricultural Engineering (1983-1990) and for the Department of Plant Science in the Faculty of Agriculture of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich (1979-1980) – following his agronomy studies. In 1982 he finished his Master of Science in Winnipeg/Canada on sugar beet production under minimum and zero tillage and in 1987 his Ph.D. at ETH in Zurich referring to the long-term retention of soil fertility.
With over thirty years of work experience and research, Sturny provides practical advice to farm managers and counts with 135 edited publications for research, agricultural advisory and practical purposes as well as for the professional press. He has teaching assignments at universities and colleges and also elaborates numerous papers given on conferences and meetings in Switzerland and abroad.