Smart Agriculture Competition entered preliminary round

September 16, 2021, Beijing – Hundreds of aspiring agricultural scientists and practitioners around the world have applied to join the Smart Agriculture Competition, with about 100 making the initial cut as the annual contest moves into the preliminary round. The panel is composed of leading experts and growers with diverse backgrounds including horticulture, crop modeling, algorithm design and policymaking. The teams will be evaluated on the creativity, applicability, and sustainability of their proposed approaches as well as their commercialization plans.

"The Competition is an example of a “timely” initiative to promote smart agriculture, which can substantially contribute to balancing the global carbon cycle and reducing greenhouse gas emissions", said Carlos Watson, FAO Representative to China and DPR Korea.

"These efforts help the world to adapt and build resilience to climate change, as well as transform toward sustainable agriculture", he added.

“Agriculture is the foundation of the development of human society and the nexus of social welfare, security, health and environment sustainability,” said Andre Zhu, Senior Vice President at Pinduoduo, “as China’s largest platform for agriculture, we want to contribute more to promote environmentally sustainable practices and invest in the agri-food system.”

With the theme on tomato growing, the Competition is co-organized by Pinduoduo, China Agricultural University and Zhejiang University, with the technical support of the FAO and Wageningen University & Research.