DOHA: The Second International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), hosted by the Ministry of Municipality's Agricultural Affairs Department, began on Monday at Expo 2023 Doha.
The two-day event is an important platform to support plant protection researchers and experts, transfer experiences to agricultural workers, present new ideas and projects in agriculture, production and disease prevention, and identify common problems in the participating countries.
The key themes on the IPPC's agenda are pests of economic importance, fungal diseases and their control, viral and bacterial diseases in plants and the epidemiology of their diseases, post-harvest pests, diseases, mycotoxins and pesticides, biological control and plant protection biotechnology, management of weeds, quarantine and phytosanitary measures.
Director of the Agricultural Affairs Department Hamad Saket Al Shammari said that the tremendous and unprecedented agricultural technology progress has resulted in amazing scientific discoveries in various research and applied fields and has contributed to achieving great advancement on the path of scientific developments and familiarity with the achievements of the modern technological revolution.
He hailed the event, which is being held in Qatar for the first time as part of the Expo 2023 Doha activities, as a tool to develop agricultural technology research, applied studies, training and development in plant diseases.
The IPPC also introduces plant pathogens and highlights the importance of using biotechnology and pest control, in addition to exchanging experiences and applying recommendations in various project fields, developing current applications, and conducting the necessary studies and research to solve problems using innovative scientific methods, he said.
Al Shammari added that the Agricultural Affairs Department would present five scientific papers that were previously published in international peer-reviewed scientific journals and their results were reviewed, and they focus on bacterial vegetable diseases, fungi and parasites.
President of the IPPC Dr Mona Ali Albloushi said the event was organised in response to the rapid developments in agricultural science and technology related to food production processes, and the tremendous discoveries and developments in the field of detecting disease-causing agents pests that affect plants, and effective diagnostic and management tools, which confirms the need for innovative research methods related to the management of agricultural diseases and pests, and the latest relevant information among researchers from various countries of the world to support efforts to manage agricultural diseases and pests.
She added that this year's edition would discuss more than over 85 scientific papers in the attendance of 150 researchers and specialists from various specializations - locally from the Ministry of Health, Qatar University, and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, along with others from the UAE, Pakistan, the US, Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and Iran.
Sultan Qaboos University's Dr Abdullah Al Sadi, who was chair of the previous edition in Muscat, stressed the importance of this year's conference in addressing the challenges of the agricultural sector and food security, the most important of which are viral, bacterial and fungal plant diseases, agricultural pests and various factors that affect the agricultural sector and threaten food security.