On April 28-29, the workshop on national grassland pest survey and the consultation meeting on 2020 grassland biological disaster occurrence trend sponsored by the Grassland Management Department of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration (SFGA) and the Forest and Grassland Pest Control Station, were successfully held via video conferencing. Attendees joined the conference from both Beijing and Shenyang. IPP-CAAS was in charge the meeting venue in Beijing. Song Zhongshan, Deputy Director of Grassland Management Department of SFGA, Chen Jianwu, Deputy Director of Ecology Protection and Remediation Department of SFGA, Academician Kang Le, President of Hebei University, attended the meeting, and Zhou Xueping, Director General of IPP-CAAS delivered a welcome speech.

On behalf of IPP-CAAS and the National Innovation Alliance for Grassland Biological Disaster Prevention and Control, DG Zhou Xueping welcomed all leaders and experts at the meeting. He reviewed the work progress of the alliance in 2019. He pointed out that under the guidance of the leaders of SFGA, 51 coalition members and more than 300 experts, always remembering President Xi’s words about “Three Orientations”, had worked hard together and made a series of important progress in tackling major technical bottleneck problems in the monitoring and control of grassland biological disasters. DG Zhou mainly reviewed the progress made by IPP-CAAS in supporting the development of grassland plant protection industry, scientific research projects of biological disasters, and transformation of scientific and technological achievements in 2019, especially in Luhuo County of Sichuan Province and Duolun County of Inner Mongolia. He stressed that the year of 2020 is the last year for poverty alleviation in China, and IPP-CAAS will continue to supply scientific and technological. He hoped that leaders at all levels from SFGA will support the institute in carrying out relevant work. Finally, on behalf of the alliance, he said that IPP-CAAS, as the leading institution of the alliance, will continue to support the work of SFGA and other relevant superior departments, continue to play the role of ‘pacesetter’, do a good job in scientific and technological support, and serve the development of the industry.

The meeting had two sessions. In the first session, discussions were carried out on the general survey of grassland pests. As members of the Expert Group, Profs Zhang Zehua and Liu Xiaohui of IPP-CAAS analyzed the importance of the general survey of grassland biological disasters, and reported the current basis for the survey of grassland rodents and pests, and put forward suggestions for the problems existing in the work, and said they will continue to provide technical support for future investigation. The second session of the meeting focused on the occurrence trend of grassland biological disasters in 2020. Profs. Zhang Zehua and Liu Xiaohui reviewed the consultation draft of the Occurrence Trend of Grassland Biological Disasters in 2020. After fully considering the comments from the experts at the meeting, they concluded that the consultation draft has a reasonable structure, clear logic and detailed data. The occurrence trend of major grassland pests was carefully investigated in this report, which provided important support for scientific and effective prevention and control of the pests in the 15 grassland provinces and regions in China.

In the end of the meeting, Academician Kang Le and Prof. Zhang Zehua together gave a special report on The Recent Occurrence of Desert Locusts. More than 60 experts from provincial forestry and grassland administration departments, grassland workstations and alliance member institutions attended the meeting.