We were overwhelmed by the interest in our "Sustainable Agriculture and Technology in the 21st century" online symposium. Almost 8,500 visitors to the live stream watched the Welcome Speech by Westlake University's president, Prof. Yigong Shi and the exciting contributions of 16 Chinese and international speakers.
Overall, a key conclusion from the meeting was that diversified systems and new technology innovations are critical for the paradigm shift towards digital and sustainable agricultural production systems.
If you have missed the live event, you can watch the full conference here: https://wx.vzan.com/live/tvchat-294832615?jumpitd=1&fr=&sharetstamp=1616631624679&shareuid=294204791#/
We had the honor to host Prof. Zengrong Zhu (Zhejiang University, China), Prof. Zhongxue Zhang (Northeastern Agriculture University, China) and Prof. Josef Settele (Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, Germany) as keynote speakers for sessions on "Agriculture in the 21st Century", "Innovative Technologies in Agriculture", and "The way Forward". Symposium participants were guided through the sessions by Dr. Xueqing He, Dr. Kevin Darras, and Dr. Juan Li from the SAT lab.
The symposium provided an excellent starting point for the kick-off workshop of the China Rice Network the next day.
We are grateful for the support of Westlake University, the School of Engineering administrative team, and the SAT lab to make this symposium a reality. Dr. Xueqing He and Ms. Jiaying Zheng deserve a special word of gratitude to coordinate the speakers, help with the advertisement, and all the other critical elements of the conference.