Food and Fertilizer Technology Center - News

  The Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian and Pacific Region (FFTC) and the Taiwan Livestock Research Institute (TLRI), Council of Agriculture have jointly organized  the International Symposium on “The Practice and Benefits of Circular Agriculture in Waste Reducing and Recycling,” which will be held on November 5-6, 2020 in Taipei, Taiwan. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic spreading, the symposium will be held both onsite and online. The onsite venue will be the 1st Floor, Hall 1 of Nangang Exhibition Center, Taipei, Taiwan, back-to-back with the 2020 Asia Agri-Tech Expo & Forum, Livestock Taiwan Expo & Forum, and Aquaculture Taiwan Expo & Forum organized by Informa Markets Asia Ltd., Taiwan Branch. Simultaneously it will also be held via WebEx videoconference system for those speakers and participants who cannot come to Taiwan. FFTC has invited Ms. Gelare Nader, the Director of Agriculture and Food Department, Netherlands Office Taipei, and Dr. Hayden Montgomery, the Special Representative of Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases to be the keynote speakers. Except for the keynote session, this symposium has four sessions on the following themes: 1) New Challenges and Opportunities to Minimize Agricultural and Food Wastes and Residuals; 2) Modern Technologies of Agricultural Waste and Residual Recycling and “Low External Input Farming”; 3) New Aspects on “Optimization of the Use of All Resources and Value-adding”; and 4) Small Farmers’ Material Matching, Basic Education and Policy Promotion (Forum) We are cordially inviting policy makers, scientists, researchers, students, agriculturists, members of the private sector, and all who are interested in Circular Agriculture to join us in this online-onsite symposium. For symposium information and registration, please click on the link: sites.google.com/fftc.org.tw/2020-circular-agro-symposium/home

  Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian and Pacific Region (FFTC), National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Japan and Kasetsart University, Thailand, will hold the International Symposium on Smart Food Value Chain - The solution to Asia’s Food Distribution on October 29, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and international travel restrictions, the symposium will be video-based and livestreamed. The term food value chain refers to the entire process to add value to agricultural products from breeding, production, processing to distribution, sales, and consumption in the market. By implementing advanced technologies such as IoT and Big Data, the food value chain can be utilized smartly to improve the distribution system itself and further increase the added value of agricultural products. Smart Food Value Chain (SFVC) contributes to improve the quality of life of farmers in Asia, especially those produce coming from agricultural crops in small scale fields. The one-day online symposium will invite experts from the Asian and Pacific Region to share experiences on 1) the recent advancement in the area of smartization of food value chain, 2) the successful practices for smart food production, 3) the latest postharvest research and technology, 4) the trend of smart food marketing/consumption, and 5) international standardization for supply of agricultural products. We would like to invite you to join this online workshop. For more information and the workshop programme, please go to www.naro.affrc.go.jp/english/events/laboratory/naro/136467 The event is open to all participants with pre-registration. Please register online at https://ws.formzu.net/dist/S48572109/ 

  Rice, Asia’s staple crop, takes on the spotlight as FFTC and Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) join forces yet again—this time for a video conference on “Crop Resilience for Adaptation to Climate Change.” This will be on September 29, 2020 from 9am to 4pm (Taiwan time) Speakers from various countries in Asia will be exchanging information and views on how climate change is affecting rice production. Presentations on the latest rice technologies, breeding, water management and other topics to mitigate the effects of climate change will be discussed. We are inviting rice scientists, researchers, students, agriculturists, and all interested in crop resilience and climate change to join us in this videoconference workshop. Join us online. For workshop information and registration, please click on the link https://bit.ly/3aLqUpb

  Date: 22-23 September 2020 Online and Onsite at National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan Dragon fruit production and markets in Asia are fast growing for the past five years. Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian and Pacific Region (FFTC) is working with its country partners and building a dragon fruit research network (DFNet) to help farmers in the Asian and Pacific Region to develop dragon fruit value chain for global markets. Two dragon fruit workshops highlighting the topics from production to distribution were organized in 2018 and 2019. This year, FFTC, Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (TCDARES), National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) and DFNet are all collaborating to hold the 3rd Dragon Fruit Workshop focusing on dragon fruit value chain for global markets. Experts from the Asian-Pacific region are invited to discuss Dragon fruit imports and exports: practices, challenges and country experiences Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), quality standards and quarantine requirements for international markets Nutritional and functional traits, value addition, processing properties, and consumer preferences  Successful stories, and public and private partnerships We are cordially inviting all dragon fruit growers, industry players, academics and enthusiasts to join us in this workshop. We sincerely welcome your participation. Join us online or onsite at the National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan. For workshop information and registration, please click on the link: https://sites.google.com/fftc.org.tw/dfnet-workshop-en/home Registration is free!

Dear FFTC Friends and Partners, The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted and affected practically all industry activities all over the world. We at FFTC have not been spared by the disruptions. Just like all developmental organizations, we are trying our best to cope with the situation and viewing everything as a challenge while making sure that the safety and health of our co-workers are still our top priority. Out of our 11 projects for 2020, we have already postponed one workshop which was originally scheduled in June to next year. For the rest of our activities, we have planned the following contingencies: Our FFTC Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) Meeting will be conducted on July 21, 2020 via videoconference. The FFTC management has requested the use of the videoconference facilities of one of the bureaus of Taiwan's Council of Agriculture - the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection Quarantine (BAPHIQ), whose management very kindly and willingly allowed us to use their facilities for the three-hour meeting. Together with our TAC members from Taiwan, we will be at the BAPHIQ headquarters, while our other TAC members from Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam will join us online. This September, our “2020 Dragon Fruit Workshop and Steering Committee Meeting—Dragon Fruit Value Chain for Global Market” will also be conducted via videoconference and we are planning to have a live mainstream of the two-day event, half-day of which will be devoted to the conduct of the Dragon Fruit Network’s Steering Committee meeting to formulate its next phase (2021-2023) project proposal. The workshop’s educational trip will be conducted prior to the workshop with the Taiwan participants joining the field exposure. An edited video recording of the field trip will also be shown and discussed during the videoconference. In October, our joint one-day symposium with the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) and Kasetsart University (KU) on “Smart Food Value Chain – The Solution to Asia’s Food Distribution,” will also be held online with NARO speakers livestreaming from Tokyo and the other speakers joining in from their respective countries. In November, we are also conducting our joint symposium with the Taiwan Livestock Research Institute, with contributions from the British Office and The Netherlands Office in Taipei on “The Practice and Benefits of Circular Agriculture in Waste Reducing and Recycling.” The event will be held live at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center back to back with the “Asia Agri-Tech Expo and Forum” organized by Informa Markets. It will also be conducted online for participating country representatives who still cannot travel to Taiwan. There will also be an exhibit of research highlights and the latest technologies on circular agriculture featuring crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry. For our other activities, we have a wait-and-see attitude. If the situation in the region gets better, we may have to push through with our original plans. However if the travel ban continues in some countries in the region, we are already preparing our other projects to make that online transition and adapt the videoconference mode as a way to conduct our other activities for the rest of the year. While face-to-face workshops and seminars will have to take a backseat for the time being, we are planning to produce webinars, infomercials, video blogs and produce more publications as alternative activities. We plan to maximize the use of our websites and the social media to disseminate information. Please find the updated “2020 FFTC Projects Schedule” and be guided accordingly. Business goes on as usual for us and you can check our websites and our FFTC Facebook page for updates. For any inquiries, comments or suggestions, you can also send us an email at info@fftc.org.tw Thank you very much, good luck on your present and future activities and please keep safe. Very truly yours, SU-SAN CHANG, Ph.D. Director FFTC is already making that online transition and adapting the videoconference mode in conducting its activities. Educational trips conducted in Taiwan will be video recorded, edited and will be shown and discussed in the videoconferences. In November, the Center is conducting its joint symposium with the Taiwan Livestock Research Institute, with contributions from the British Office and The Netherlands Office in Taipei on “The Practice and Benefits of Circular Agriculture in Waste Reducing and Recycling.”