2nd International Wheat Congress kicks off in Beijing

Wu Kongming, president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences that hosted the congress, said China has been making efforts to improve the production and quality of wheat through scientific research, which is an important way to ensure national food security and stabilize global food prices.

The CAAS has been cooperating with international partners to propose the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative, aiming to establish a global sharing mechanism of crop germplasm resources including wheat, Wu said.

Claudia Sadoff, executive managing director of CGIAR that co-hosted the congress, emphasized global partnership, like China and CGIAR, in strengthening achievements in the scientific research.

The priority is to increase grain yields, diseases resistance, climate resilience, and nutrition quality through breeding modernization, Sadoff said.

"This is especially important as we are facing a food system crisis, with wheat at its heart. The global food crisis requires a system approach to stabilize wheat supply," she said.

During the opening ceremony, the Lifetime Achievement Award were issued to late Zhuang Qiaosheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a wheat agronomist at the Institute of Crop Sciences at CAAS, and Robert McIntosh, an academician of Australian National Academy of Sciences and a tenured professor of the University of Sydney.

The 3rd International Wheat Congress is scheduled to be held in Australia in 2024.