The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy

University of Lisbon, Tropical College, School of Agriculture, Portugal;
Ana Isabel Faria Ribeiro-Barros (ARB) PhD Plant Molecular Biology, MSc Biotechnology - Plant and Microbial Production Current Positions and Appointments: (i) University of Lisbon, Director of the Tropical College, Senior Researcher with Habilitation/Head of Plant Stress and Biodiversity Lab, Professor of Cell Biology and Plant Biotechnology, (ii) High Level Policy Dialogue EU/Africa - Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture, National Expert; (iii) Member of the Miombo Network of Southern Africa.

University of Guelph, ON, Canada;
Dr. Istvan Rajcan is a Professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Canada. Dr. Rajcan has been leading a dynamic soybean breeding and genetics program at the University of Guelph since 1998, where he focuses on seed compositional traits for food, nutraceutical and industrial uses. His research involves exploration of genetic variation for yield and disease resistance traits using exotic germplasm and organic soybean breeding using classical genetic and genomic tools.

CREA-Council for agricultural research and economics, Italy;
Dr. Lupia is a Senior Researcher at CREA- Council for agricultural research and economics (Italy). He has more than 15 years of experience in the development of GIS and Remote Sensing applications to agri-environmental issues and in the production and reuse of statistical data. He has been principal investigator for several projects funded both by European Commission and Italian public organizations. He has been project evaluator for Italian and European funded research projects. His research interests include geospatial information; precision agriculture; remote sensing; administrative and statistical data for agriculture; open data. Dr. Lupia earned a M.S. in Geology (2000) with honors, a B.A. in Computer Engineering (2004) and a Specializing Master in Environmental Monitoring (2004). He is the author of over 100 publications.

Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences-DISTAL, DISTAL, University of Bologna, Italy;
Dr. Ali is a PhD in agronomy with focused on “remote sensing and site specific crop management in precision agriculture”. He has more than 5 years of research experience in conducting agronomic field trials, crop fertilizations, spatial data science/analytics, precision field cropping, remote imagery acquisition and processing, application of remote sensing in precision agriculture, digital soil mapping, geostatistics, apparent soil electrical conductivity directed to soil sampling, delineating field spatiotemporal heterogeneity, yield mapping, working on GIS computer-based software’s (mainly ArcGIS, QGIS, MZA and ESAP) and technical skills on machine learning software (MATLAB)-especially artificial neural network modelling for the estimation of crop yields. Dr. Ali is the author of 10 Scopus indexed research articles; topic editor and reviewer board member of Remote Sensing and Land, MDPI; and contributing as a potential reviewer for ISI and Scopus indexed journals.

Newcastle University, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, UK;
Dr Leonidas Rempelos is a Research Scientist on Sustainable Agri-food production Systems, with 10+ years of experience while he has contributed to the successful delivery of various large multidisciplinary EU, industry and charity-funded research and innovation projects. Most of his research is focusing on strategies to reduce the environmental impact of food production while maintaining and improving productivity and nutritional quality. Working on achieving that aim Leos research activities are focusing on investigating and exploiting complex interactions between (i) crop genetics (including neglected and underutilised species and traditional genotypes), (ii) agronomic practices (e.g. crop rotation, tillage, crop protection, fertilisation, irrigation) and (iii) the environment (pedoclimatic conditions) (biotic & abiotic environment) on crop health, yield and yield stability, resource use efficiency, and food quality and safety parameters

Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Italy;
Fabio Tittarelli is a Senior Scientist at CREA – Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment. During the last fifteen years, he has been carrying out research activities in organic farming. In the period 2018-2021, he was the scientific coordinator of a CORE Organic Cofund project titled “Organic and bio-dynamic vegetable production in low-energy GREENhouses – sustainable, RESILIENT and innovative food production systems” – GREENRESILIENT). He was a Permanent member of the Expert Group of the European Commission for Technical advice on Organic Production (EGTOP) (category Soil Science) for n. 2 mandates (2010- 2016). He is the author of more than one hundred scientific and informative articles (54 articles published on ISI scientific journals, h-index 17)

Department of Plant Science, University of Manitoba, Canada;
Martin Entz is professor in the University of Manitoba’s Plant Science department. He received his PhD from the University of Saskatchewan in 1988 and worked as a farm manager and research agronomist before embarking on his academic career. “The goal of my program is to discover new ways of farming ecologically; to empower farmers with knowledge to design organic farming systems adapted to where they live; and to engage students in this exciting process”. He leads the Glenlea study – Canada’s oldest organic-conventional farming systems comparison study, which is entering its 31th season. In 2011, Martin started Canada’s first farmer participatory wheat and oat breeding program focused on organic production. Martin teaches courses in crop production and often hosts a “Summer Institute” at the U of M Carman campus. Martin has led agricultural projects in Central America, Zimbabwe, East Africa and North Korea. Martin is a member of the “Prairie Food Vision Network”, winners of the 2020 Rockefeller Foundation Food Systems Vision Prize.

Director Strategic Projects, Program Director, Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, Farming Together, Southern Cross University, Australia;
Lorraine is the Founder and Director of the National Regenerative Agriculture Alliance. As Director of Strategic Projects at Southern Cross University, Lorraine acts as a conduit between industry and research, delivering regenerative agriculture solutions nationally with a focus on mitigating the effects of climate change. She was the instigator and co-designer of the Bachelor of Science in Regenerative Agriculture – the only degree of its kind in the world and now the largest agricultural degree in the country. A Graduate of the Australian Rural Leadership Program and previous NSW ABC Rural Woman of the Year Lorraine is currently completing her PhD in Ecological Economics through UNE, looking at a triple bottom line comparisons and resilience between regenerative and conventional grazing systems. She has assisted over 28,500 farmers, fishers and foresters around the country to progress collaborative projects including establishing Cooperatives which will benefit their various industries as Director of the Commonwealth Government’s Farming Together Program. Lorraine was awarded the 2018 Rural Community Leader of the Year for Australia for her work with farmers, the 2019 Australian Financial Review Award and the 2019 BHERT Higher Education Engagement Award. She was also a finalist in the 2020 Australian of the Year Award. Lorraine is also a carbon farmer and beef cattle trader at Ebor in the New England Tablelands of NSW (having left the city at the age of 21 to run a remote cattle property at Ebor her story is one of resilience and determination). She is also Director of Moffat Falls Pty Ltd which operates a number of successful tourism businesses in the New England Tablelands and Mid North Coast regions of Northern NSW.

Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, The Volcani Institute, Agriculture Research Organization, Newe Ya'ar Research Center, ARO, Israel;

Head of Plant Pathologists Group of Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Greece;
Dr Emilia Markellou, is the Head of Plant Pathologists Group of Benaki Phytopathological Institute (GR). She holds a BSc and MSc in Agronomy-Crop Protection and a PhD in Phytopathology (on biocontrol of grey mould in tomatoes). She is experienced in developing plant diseases management strategies, integrating resistant cultivars with bio-pesticides, plant extracts and chemical agents. She has particular interest in developing low input crop protection systems and impact assessment procedures applicable in agriculture. She has coordinated FP7 & and LIFE Projects (BPI PlantHeal, SAGE10, LIFE PureAgroH2O), and was Partner/WP Leader in several national or EU Projects (CO-FREE, EcoPest, BalkanRoad, Plant-B, NanoShield, PlantUp). She has participated in EFSA expert panels on microbials, and National Working Groups (on plant protection products) and she is involved in actions of the National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (sector IPM implementation). She is member of EPPO expert panels on plant health and plant defense inducers and she has more than 60 publications in peer reviewed journals, proceedings, congresses special issues. She has experience in R&D of plant protection products and in planta experimentation. She is invited speaker in EU Stakeholder meetings/workshops and ERA Projects implemented in EU candidate countries and trainer in BTSF courses. She is also coordinating the actions of the National Reference Laboratory of Mycology on fungi and oomycetes (plant health).

Head of Weed Science Laboratory, Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Greece;
Demosthenis Chachalis (M), MSc, PhD. an agronomist and the Head of Weed Science Laboratory. He is the head of the national Efficacy Evaluation group (for herbicides). He worked as a researcher at the USDA-ARS, at Stoneville MS, USA (1998-2000). He has got a long research experience (>20 years) on weed biology, herbicide resistance, development, and implementation of integrated weed management systems. He has been a member of Organizing/Scientific committees of International Symposia/conferences and invited speaker. Dr D. Chachalis has published more than 50 papers in international peer-review journals; he has been editor or main author in books/chapters in English weed science textbooks, with more than 1.600 citations and Citation index, h-index=16, “i10” index=28. He has been the co-ordinator/partner on several major national and EU project (PRIMA, LIFE+, national, etc). Currently he is the chair of the Organizing Committee of the 19th EWRS Symposium in Athens, June 2022 and chairman for the EWRS workshop on “Sustainable use of Herbicides”.