According to the public relations office of the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, the 9th Iranian Conference on Weed Sciences with the slogan "Promoting sustainable weed management is a step towards food security" was held on November 16-17, 2021 with the participation of the Weed Science Association, Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection and Agricultural Extension and Education institute in part virtually along with a few participants present at the conference.
Dr. Hossein Jafari, Director of the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, emphasizing bio-stresses as one of the most important food threats pointed out the role of weeds in this regard. Dr. Jafari, referring to the effective activities of the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection in the field of weed control, emphasized: In the registration of new herbicides, more research and activity is needed and low-risk herbicides should be introduced for 7 strategic crops. He also called for research on the management of invasive weed and management in newly planted crops and expressed hope that effective steps would be taken to address the challenges in developing the country's weed knowledge.
In this ceremony, Dr. Mojtaba Khayyam Nekouei, Deputy Minister and Director of the Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, considered the smart choice of the conference slogan very appropriate considering the importance of food security and added: Due to the limited access to food resources at present compared to the past, significant changes have taken place in the world food security situation.
Dr. Iskandar Zand, the national reference of the Convention on Biological Diversity, regarding the role of weed management in ensuring the country's food security, explained three issues: the country's food security situation in the world, the most important food security challenge of the country and weed management. He emphasized the importance of research and statistics on the amount of weed damage in the country for weed management.
In the final part of the ceremony, Dr. Hossein Najafi, the Scientific Secretary of the Iranian Weed Sciences Conference, while presenting a report on the acceptance, refereeing and presentation of conference papers, said: 177 scientific research papers were received by the conference secretariat out of which 132 papers were accepted for oral presentation. Eleven key papers and 97 papers in the form of posters were accepted in this conference.
