March 27, 2022

• 15:00

  Registration desk open and start welcome reception

• 15:30

  Start canal tour

  Relax and enjoy the view of the city from the river. Bask in the fascinating history of Ghent as your professional tour guide shares with you all the history and secrets of the city. See the beautiful architecture in Ghent and view the impressive walls of the Castle of Counts.

• 17:00

  Opening
  

  • Welcome
    

    by our chair Dr. An Michiels, Director AgKnowledge Partnering (Belgium)

  • Opening
    

    by Dr. Arjen van Tunen, CEO KeyGene (NL) and Prof Dr Dirk Inze, Science Director VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology (Belgium)

• 17:15

  Plenary keynote lectures
  

  This Sunday evening program will focus on the impact of climate change on the development and production of crops.

  • ´Environmental control for better plants and better plants for controlled environments’
    

    by Dr. Jon Van Wagenen, Senior Scientist AeroFarms (US)

    Jon will highlight AeroFarms achievements to date in using environmental control to produce exceptional plants. Furthermore, the presentation will provide perspective on how the interaction between genetics and environment offers an opportunity to breed crops for vertical farms.

  • ´Adapting crops to changing environments: Genetic diversity & sustainable banana production´
    

    by Anker Sørensen, Vice President New Business KeyGene (NL)

    The presentation will describe in general how KeyGene is approaching the challenges caused by fast changing environments. Focussed on crop improvement to address these challenges. A few examples on this theme of ongoing research will be given. The bulk of the presentation will further focus on the banana example, explaining the market of this important fruit and it’s challenges with respect to sustainable production. In particular I will discuss the way KeyGene and our partners in the newly established R&D company Yelloway, are approaching the breeding of novel banana varieties that will be able to face the challenges.

  • ´A different kind of green: changing the narrative on sustainable food production´
    

    Dr. Hidde Boersma, Science journalist, essayist and documentary film maker (NL)

    For the general public there is only way forward to more sustainable food production. It is the story of the classical environmentalist: farm more in harmony with nature, extensify and eschew from using more of  the modern techniques that got us in the problems in the first place. Recent science however, suggests this path might actually worsen the case.  To save biodiversity and stave off of an even hotter climate, it is actually best to intensify food production of the most fertile fields, to make more space for nature.  How is it possible that this new story hardly leaves academia, and how do we change the narrative on what sustainable food production actually entails?

• 19:00

  Conference buffet

• 20:00

  Closing keynote lecture - ´Food as a Force for Good – Driving the Food Transition Together´
  

  by Manfred Aben, Global VP S&T Foods & Refreshment / Site Leader Unilever Foods Innovation Centre Wageningen (NL)

  • The food system is broken – Unilever’s Future Food Commitments
  • Doing well by doing good: Purpose and Sustainability are key drivers for growth and resilience
  • If you think you can do it alone, you are not thinking big enough
  • Working across the value chain and beyond – ecosystem innovation
  • Challenges we need to address – together.

• 20:45

  Dessert and coffee/tea buffet