Photographs took centre stage at Tropentag 2026 as the Let’s Plant photo competition celebrated images and photo stories exploring food security, farming, livelihoods and changing landscapes.

Around 20–25 submissions were received this year, with awards presented in two categories: single photographs and photo stories.

Jeremy Brendan Gratton received first place in the single-photo category for “Restoring Batwa Food Security Through Community Gardens.” The photograph shows Batwa people transplanting cabbage as part of a community initiative supporting food security and local food knowledge.

Immanuel Manurung took second place with “Beyond the Palms: Balancing Food Sovereignty and Economic Survival.” His photograph captures the challenges created when expanding monoculture plantations reduce space for food crops, highlighting the links between landscape change, biodiversity and food security.

In the photo story category, Triana Pebrianti received third place for “Planting Hope in Palm Oil Replanting Land, Toward a Food Secure Village.” Her story follows farmers growing chili between young oil palm trees during the replanting period, turning otherwise unused space into an opportunity for food production and additional income. The activity also gives children an opportunity to learn where their food comes from and what it takes to grow it.

Eunice Adwoa Sarpong received second place for “Navigating Transformation in Agropastoral Landscapes.” Through a series of photographs, her story explores how communities, livestock and land interact as farming and pastoral systems change. The images highlight changing land use as well as the ways people negotiate access to and management of land.

First place went to Harifidy Rakoto Ratsimba for a photo story documenting LLANDEV’s integrated approach to restoring degraded land and strengthening rural livelihoods. Since 2021, LLANDEV has built a 16-hectare living laboratory in the Boeny region of Madagascar, where researchers, farmers and local communities work together to test solutions including cassava and cowpea firebreaks, agroforestry, gully restoration and intensive composting.
 
The initiative has trained more than 500 farmers and produces around 500,000 seedlings each year, with a reported survival rate of 95%. Its interventions address several challenges at once, including restoring soil fertility, preventing wildfires, strengthening food security and building climate resilience.

Together, the winning entries show different ways people respond to changing landscapes and food-system challenges. From community gardens and intercropping to landscape restoration and agropastoral systems, the photographs bring attention to the people and practices behind broader questions of sustainability.

The competition offered a different way to experience these issues at Tropentag— through images that turn complex environmental and food-system challenges into stories that can be seen, shared and remembered.

Stay tuned to the Let’s Plant website to explore the winning photographs and the stories behind them.