COMSATS’ Excellent Centre in China, International Center for Climate and Environment Sciences (ICCES) and The Islamia University of Bahawalpur (IUB), Pakistan co-organized the 1st International Conference on ‘Innovations in Agriculture to Ensure Global Food Security’ with theme of “Threats to Agriculture Being Faced by Climate Change”. The conference was successfully held on 10th November 2021 in Main Auditorium of IUB as well as a virtual conference access that allows over 80 people participated online. Overall, 150 researchers, policymakers, farmers, and students participated the conference from Australia, Canada, China, Brazil, Germany, Nepal, New Zealand, Thailand, Turkey, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom, China and Pakistan.

In the opening session, welcome address was given by Vice Chancellor of IUB Prof. Dr. Athar Mahboob, he welcomed the participants and extended gratitude to distinguished speakers. Then, director of ICCES, Prof. Zhaohui LIN gave a keynote speech of “CAS Earth System Model and its Applications for Sustainable Development”. Prof. Lin mentioned that ICCES and IUB officially signed the MoU early this year. Co-organizing this Conference is under the framework of MoU and it set the tone for coming programs and activities between two parties. Prof. Lin briefly introduced the history and the research fields of ICCES. After that, He introduced a brand-new version of CAS Earth System Model (CAS-ESM2.0), which has participated in the 6th coupled model intercomparison project, and has been widely applied for climate change and impact studies. He further emphasized that CAS-ESM can play important role for the Sustainable Development in agriculture.

Then, the technical sessions of the conference comprised 15 talks focused on the topics of innovations in agriculture, global food security in relation to climate change Impacts.

Such as Ashfaq Ahmad Chattha, from Asian Disaster Preparedness Center in Thailand presented “CARE for South Asia: A methodological Framework for Addressing Agriculture Sector Risk and Hazards in Punjab-Pakistan”; Yoichiro KATO from The University of Tokyo shared the topic of “Critical nitrogen dilution curves: Implications for precision nitrogen management in rice”; Tefide Kizildeniz, from Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University of Turkey discussed “Effects of climate change on agriculture”;

Mumtaz A. Cheema, from Memorial University Grenfell Campus of Canada talked about “Rooting for net zero-emissions: Building climate resilient cropping systems to achieve global food security”.

This one-day conference brought together international and national researchers, academics, policymakers, and farmers involved and shared insightful topics related to climate smart agricultural technologies; natural resource management; crop/plant nutrition management and adoption to environmental stresses for Sustainable Management etc. Participants believed that Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) play a critical role in combating impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture and those challenges require closer global cooperation.

Conference Flyer

Prof. Lin gave a keynote speech

Main Auditorium of IUB