ISAAA along with co-organizers Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, and Virginia Tech concluded this year's seven-session on the Webinar Series on Regulatory Approaches for Agricultural and Food Applications of Animal Biotechnology on December 3, 2020, with the final online plenary meeting held to list down the challenges in communication and training faced by different countries when implementing or developing a framework for animal biotechnology.

The Philippines is the first country to plant a biotech crop in Southeast Asia and has become a model for science-based biosafety regulation in the region. In 2019, Filipino farmers boosted the area planted to biotech maize. Global biotech crop adoption in 2019 and the Philippine experience on biotech crops will be presented through a webinar on December 14, 2020, at 10 AM (GMT+8) via Zoom.

A team of scientists at Gladstone Institutes, University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has developed the technology for a CRISPR-based test for COVID-19 that uses a smartphone camera to provide accurate results in under 30 minutes. The Gladstone team led by Dr. Melanie Ott and Parinaz Fozouni worked with UC Berkeley bioengineer Dr. Daniel Fletcher and Dr. Jennifer Doudna, senior investigator at Gladstone, professor at UC Berkeley, president of the Innovative Genomics Institute, and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

In image processing, speech and video processing, machine vision, natural language processing, and classic two-player games, in particular, the state-of-the-art has been rapidly pushed forward over the last decade, as a series of machine-learning performance records were achieved for publicly organized challenge problems. In many of these challenges, the records now meet or exceed human performance level.

Aquatic foods are an integral part of the global food system that contribute significantly to food and nutrition security and livelihoods, particularly throughout low- and middle-income countries. The global supply of aquatic foods comes from capture fisheries and aquaculture, but there is concern about sustainability of the industry and its ability to meet future needs and demands.

COVID-19 is often a biphasic illness with an initial phase of upper respiratory symptoms that can rapidly progress to profound hypoxemia and respiratory failure. Postmortem studies of severe COVID-19 reveal diffuse alveolar damage, hyaline membranes, and thrombi, with varying degrees of inflammation and types of cellular infiltrates. Now, with their autopsy study of early victims of the pandemic in China

While we are about to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Paris Agreement on climate change, carbon neutrality pledges across a range of stakeholders and sectors is observed. As of today, more than 110 countries have committed to a net-zero objective. In such a context, the seminar explores how to support countries to become carbon neutral, by promoting soil and forest carbon sequestration efforts

A meeting between Japan’s Ambassador to Cambodia and the Southeast Asian Representative of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) discussed ideas on strengthening future partnership and collaboration between Japan and IRRI to support the Cambodian agricultural sector.  IRRI SEA Representative, Dr. Yasmi Yurdi, who is currently based in Cambodia, met with Japanese Ambassador to Cambodia, H.E. Masahiro Mikami, to convey the institute’s gratitude to the Government of Japan for its long-term and continued support of IRRI.

Surveys on agricultural technology adoption in Nigeria carried out in 2019-2020 revealed gains made in crop yields, gross margins and ROI, as well as challenges in accessing improved seeds. One of the suggestions made on the basis of these results was that ICRISAT develop appropriate policy briefs for use by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD Nigeria) and agricultural sector partners for value chains and markets of millets, sorghum and groundnut.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has appointed the popular British gardening expert, writer and broadcaster, Monty Don, as a Goodwill Ambassador to promote the International Year of Plant Health.  In addition, FAO has appointed the Irish garden designer, writer, and broadcaster, Diarmuid Gavin, as an official Champion of the cause.