Food and Fertilizer Technology Center - News

  The Food and Fertilizer Technology Center (FFTC) for the Asian and Pacific Region and the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) of the Council of Agriculture are collaborating in organizing the International Webinar on “Proficiency Testing of Soil/Plant Analysis and Workshop on Data Interpretation and Fertilization Recommendation,” which will be held on October 22, 2021. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the workshop will be held online via WebEx videoconference system for all speakers and participants. FFTC has invited Dr. Ichirou Uezono, the Laboratory Chief of Kagoshima Prefectural Institute for Agricultural Development, Osumi Branch in Japan, and Dr. FK (Frits) van Evert, Senior Research Scientist of Wageningen University and Research from the Netherlands to be our keynote speakers. Besides the keynote session, this workshop has three other sessions with the following themes: 1) The Final Report of Proficiency Testing Project; 2) Sharing of Experiences and Best Practices in the Application of Soil Testing and Plant Analysis on Rational Use of Fertilizers to Its Major Crops (Country Report); 3) Development of New Tools or Technologies on Sampling and Testing of Soil Testing and Plant Analysis; and 4) General Discussion. We are cordially inviting experts from government agencies or accredited laboratories especially those working on soil testing, plant analysis or fertilization recommendation to join us in this webinar. This webinar is only open for those who have registered to join the Cisco WebEx Event system. The registration system opens today at 12 p.m. Taiwan time (GMT+8). For more information about this event, please check the webinar webpage (sites.google.com/fftc.org.tw/2021fftc-tari-pt-workshop/home), or follow us on our FFTC Facebook page and our official website.

  Join us online on October 6 as FFTC celebrates its 50th Anniversary. Agricultural experts, researchers, academicians, members of the agri public and private sector in the Asian Pacific region will join the FFTC family in reminiscing and celebrating 50 years of the Center’s existence. Part of the celebration is the holding of a symposium entitled “Making Agri-Food Systems Sustainable.” The said symposium aims to share and exchange current perspectives and challenges on how the region can provide enough food with good quality while at the same time keep the agricultural environment sustainable. The symposium will have two sessions: 1) Sustainable Agri-Food Systems (Food Supply); 2) Nourishing Asia’s Growing Population (Food Consumption) and an Agricultural Policy Forum - Moving towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems under and beyond COVID-19 Pandemic. For registration and more information, visit the following link: sites.google.com/fftc.org.tw/fftc50thanniversarysymposium-l

  2021 IPB-FFTC Workshop (video conference) Date: September 22, 2021, 09:00 – 17:00 (GMT+7)/ 10:00 – 18:00 (GMT+8) Smart and resilient agriculture is essential to address the impacts of climate change, natural disasters, and infectious disease pandemics. In the Asian Pacific region, about 90% of enterprises and farmers are of the small to medium-scale types, with lower productivity and lower capacity of adoption to advanced technologies. Smallholder-inclusive plan and adaptation processes could be enhanced by considering local culture and existing practice and policy which are required to support small farmers and businesses to take advantage of the rapid development of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and participate in smart farming systems. FFTC in partnership with IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia, is organizing a video conference on “Adaptation and Adoption of Agricultural Sensors, Information Communication Technologies, and Smart Supply Chains to Support Smallholder Farmers” on September 22, 2021. The workshop will be joined and participated in by experts from Asian-Pacific countries who will share their knowledge and experiences in the following thematic topics: Advances of agricultural sensors and other ICTs in smart farming Successful cases of smart farming systems and supply chains (crops, livestock, aquaculture) Support policies and public-private partnership We sincerely welcome your participation. Registration is free! Please visit the workshop website for program and registration: https://ipbfftc-seminar2021.id/

The Center’s Executive Board recently approved 11 projects for 2021. The activities in the projects include nine workshops, three networks and one seminar for our 50th Anniversary Event. Because the ongoing pandemic cannot allow us to hold face-to-face meetings, all of our projects would still be done online with seven of these having onsite counterparts in our home base in Taipei. Also including in our list of activities are the continuation of our Agricultural Policy Platform (now on its 9th year), our project on Enhancing International Collaboration for Tropical Fruit Value Chain for Global Markets (now on its 4th year) and our Proficiency Testing of Soil/Plant Analysis (now on its 4th year). Below is the Center’s Projects for 2021 which will be updated on this site from time to time. PDF file download link: http://bit.ly/3oVLqZW

The establishment of the FFTC Agricultural Policy (FFTC-AP) Platform in 2013 is directed toward collecting and disseminating the latest information on agricultural policies from various countries in the Asian and Pacific region, including Australia, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. The information sources include invited and submitted analytic and research papers by agricultural professionals and policy experts mainly in Asia, as well as the latest news from academic and country reports. The main objective of the FFTC-AP Platform is to establish a database of national agricultural policies for sharing and exchanging agricultural policy information across different countries. To date, more than a thousand articles have been published in the Platform under 30 categories. The categories include topics such as Food security and safety, Overview of agricultural policy, Production policy, Smart agriculture, Farmers' welfare and retirement system, Agricultural human resources development, Agricultural science policies and technology development, Agricultural marketing policy, Agricultural e-commerce, Trade liberalization countermeasures, Import regulation and quarantine, Agricultural circular economy, Eco-friendly agriculture (satoyama and satoumi), and Rural development, etc. There are two ways to publish your papers on FFTC-AP Platform (the first one is preferred): 1. Submit manuscripts to contracted partners (please click here for their contact information). 2. Submit manuscripts directly to FFTC. All the manuscripts will be under paper review, which is coordinated by FFTC-AP contracted partners and the FFTC-AP management team. The review process will be normally completed within 14 working days. The authors should then revise their articles, according to reviewers’ comments, and send back to the original contact channel. Once the papers are accepted and published on the FFTC-AP website, certain amount of remuneration will be paid to the author(s). For more information on paper submission, please contact Ms. Natalie Lu via natalielupy@fftc.org.tw We warmly welcome you to submit agricultural policy related papers (at least 1,500 words) to us. Join us and be part of our team! For more information, please visit FFTC-AP website.