Between June 24-26, the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) held its annual international conference focussing on the topic „Digital transformation – towards sustainable food value chains in Eurasia“. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year’s conference was held online. The event was attended by more than 400 participants from all over the world. The DCZ as well as representatives of institutes of the DCZ partner, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), actively contributed to the conference.
In his keynote speech Professor Wu Wenbin, from the CAAS Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) and Chief Scientist of the National Key Laboratory for Smart Agriculture explained how “digitalisation empowers the development of China’s agriculture and rural areas”. Professor Hu Xiangdong from the CAAS Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development (IAED) chaired an organised session on “Digital transformation and sustainable agri-food system in China”. The second China session was organised by Zhanli (Jerry) Sun and Lena Kuhn from IAMO’s China International Research Group. For the DCZ science advisor Dr. Eva Sternfeld participated in this session. In her presentation on “Digital tools for small-scale and sustainable farming – lessons learnt and options for future research cooperation” she introduced DCZ’s activities in the field of smart agriculture including two Sino-German conferences which have been organised in cooperation with Prof. Wu Wenbin from IARRP/CAAS, the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bio-Economy (ATB) and the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF).
DCZ also actively contributed to and hosted one of the “virtual foyer sessions” which were organised on all three days during the lunch break of the conference. On June 24, DCZ had the opportunity to present itself as well as recent and planned activities in the field of smart agriculture. DCZ managing director Dr. Jürgen Ritter gave a presentation entitled “Meet the Sino-German Agriculture Centre (DCZ): an innovative and flexible platform”. On June 25 and 26, DCZ team members participated in the virtual foyer session organised by GFA consulting group on the topic “Bilateral Cooperation of BMEL – Together for a strong agriculture sector”. In this session Dirk Landmann (GFA) introduced the Bilateral Cooperation Programmes (BKP) of the German Ministry for Food and Agriculture and representatives of the BKPs in Russia, Ukraine and China exchanged their experiences with activities related to smart agriculture and digitalisation.
For more information about the IAMO conference and the detailed programme please also visit the conference website.
