Symposium brings together more than 200 people to discuss the future of agriculture

With the presence of nationally renowned speakers, the Pró-Sementes Research Support Foundation brought together more than 200 participants at the Seed Symposium. The event took place in Passo Fundo (RS), on August 22nd, in celebration of the entity's two decades of operations.

The program opened with the lecture “Policies in the Seed Business”, given by the technical consultant for SeedNews magazine and professor at the Faculty of Agronomy at UFPel for over 40 years, Silmar Teichert Peske. He addressed the dynamism of the seed sector in light of the sector's technological innovations.

The event also featured a lecture “People Management in the Digital Era”, by the CEO of Futuro S/A, André Souza. He addressed the changes that new technologies are generating in the world of work, business, organizations and talent management.

 Agricultural engineer João Alberto Oliveira Júnior, commercial director of Ag.In, spoke about what agriculture was like in the past, how precision agriculture emerged, which helped create the sector as we know it today, and what the next steps are from agriculture 4.0, in the lecture entitled “From the plow to agriculture 4.0”. The speaker left a message for the participants: “don’t be afraid to share your ideas”.

The ecophysiology and biotechnology researcher at Embrapa Soja, Liliane Mertz Henning, closed the Symposium program with the lecture “Biotechnology Tools in Agriculture: past, present and future”. The agronomist addressed topics such as the impact of transgenics and genetic improvement in agriculture, as well as new gene editing tools, in particular the CRISPR/Cas tool, which allows the genome of plants to be altered precisely, and imitate mutations that could occur in nature, but would take years.

The director of the Pró-Sementes Foundation, Alexandre Levien, highlighted the success of the Seed Symposium, as well as the commitment of the professionals involved in organizing the event. Levien stated that, given the successful experience of the first edition, the entity should continue the Symposium.

Participants were invited to donate non-perishable food. More than 160 kg of supplies were collected and sent to the Social Assistance Reference Center.