Working Committee of Youth, China Society of Plant Protection (CSPP), and State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests jointly organized the 11th National Youth Plant Protection Sci-Tech Innovation Symposium. The Workshop was held successfully in Nanjing on 7-10 December, 2016. More than 260 participants, coming from research institutions, universities (colleges) and technical extension institutions in 23 provinces (municipalities or autonomous regions) were present at the Symposium. This Symposium established a high level platform for young workers in plant protection to carry out academic exchange and research cooperation. Young workers focused on Plant Protection and Safety of Agro-Product, the theme of the Symposium, exchanged recent research progress in plant protection. Vice President LIU Xianjin of Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences and DDG ZHANG Bujiang of IPP-CAAS delivered speeches. Prof. LU Yanhui, the director of Working Committee of Youth, CSPP, addressed the opening of the Symposium.

ZHANG Bujiang indicated in his speech that youth in plant protection was the hope of Chinese plant protection project. Youth shouldered the historical mission to innovate. He hoped that the young scientists valued the opportunity to learn during the Symposium and tried hard to improve themselves.

LU Yanhui introduced briefly the history of the Working Committee of Youth in the past 21 years since her establishment and the working progress in setting up national network of youth in plant protection, the academic innovative exchanges, and social responsibilities and missions the youth undertook since the current Working Committee of Youth took the office three years ago. He said that the members of the Committee had increased to over 130 in 90 institutions from more than 20 people by end of the last Committee due to the awareness and support of leaders and senior scientists. It had become one of the largest branches in CSPP, he said. The Committee held youth academic exchanges, special exchanges, strategic research meetings, etc., and, by doing so, the academic influence of the Committee was promoted in the areas of plant protection countrywide. Through the work of writing professional publications, carrying out extension services and training of grass-root technicians, the Committee worked hard to become the backbone in plant protection in volunteer work and service for public welfare, the new force in disseminating scientific knowledge and to broaden the influence throughout society. For the next focuses of the Committee, LU emphasized that the members of the Committee should, with the assistance of the Committee, practice the historical mission of Solve the problems the farmers face and write good papers targeting the frontier of science and actively give advices and suggestions so as to facilitate the Committee’s work.

The Symposium invited 14 famous experts including Prof. HUANG Dafang from Biotechnology Research Institute of CAAS, Prof. YANG Puyun from the National Agricultural Technology Extension and Service Center, Prof. ZHENG Yongquan from IPP-CAAS, etc. The experts talked in the areas of the mechanisms of occurrence of crop diseases, insect pests and weeds and their control, pesticides and the safe use, GMOs and biosafety, how to write academic papers, etc. The participants of the Symposium discussed warmly with the speakers. The Symposium invited also 19 young talents including Prof. MEN Xingyuan from Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Prof. ZHAO Sifeng from Xinjiang Shihezi University, etc., to speak. The presentations of the young scientists covered plant diseases, insect pests, weeds, rodents, pesticides and modern agricultural planning and development.

The Symposium compiled the proceedings entitled Plant Protection and Safety of Agro-Product. The Proceedings mainly introduced the international research frontier and trends in certain areas in plant protection. The papers expounded academic points of views and exchanged personal ideas, reflected the active thoughts and thinking ways of youngsters and demonstrated the novel research progress made by the young scientists.