Welcome to the World Café
On Tuesday, the DPG Junior Scientists invited to a World Café round table discussion at the IPPC 2015. Participants from all over the world came together and joined on three different tables, each table representing a different topic related to plant protection. After introducing themselves they exchanged their opinions on the specific topic. When time was over after 15 minutes, they had to move on to the next table/topic. Marlene and Alexander hosted the discussion on the first topic addressing the role of Junior Scientists in future plant protection. The young scientist described their own actual situation and difficulties they are facing day by day and in general. Junior Scientists, especially from developing countries, stated that it is difficult to get traveling funds to participate in international conferences. However, the continuous communication between international colleagues and the establishment of networks was seen as very important. According to a young scientist it is very helpful to have a mentor who supports you and introduces you into existing networks. The participants whished that the contact persist beyond the time of a conference. New media platforms may provide a good opportunity to ensure a lasting exchange.

Critically discussed was the idea that young scientists have to be flexible in their way and should be able to adapt to unfamiliar research fields even if they are not of their own interest. Some stated that you will grow into it after a while. Others advocated that you will only give your very best and achieve extraordinary results when you love what you are doing. In that case, you may have to wait and search a little bit longer to find such a optimum job/positions but it is worth. “Never give up!”

The opinion, that there is quite a lot good research in plant protection all over the world was broadly accepted, but according to many participants, future food security can only be achieved with more solution orientated results which are practicable for farmers. In addition, innovative and individual research may only be possible with reliable and continuous financial support and with less pressure to publish.

The second round table discussed quite controversially the use of synthetic plant protection agents. This discussion was led by Sabine and Roman. Most participants agreed that it is not possible to secure food for all without synthetic plant protection agents, but the goal still should be to reduce its use to a minimum. However, yield and quality is important for farmers. The research on efficient biocontrol agents and the possibility to combine them with chemical control agents was seen very important. The realization of IPM strategies was mentioned often and the education of farmers as basis for adapting IPM in the long term.

Lyhlea Metha said (1999) "The new role of World Bank is supposed to include not only transfer capital to developing countries but also to close the gaps that exist in the level of knowledge". This was the opening statement for the world café with the third topic: “Global food security through knowledge exchange: fact or fantasy”. The participants were mostly international and their contributions in this meeting met their need which made the discussion very important.

One answer I found of great importance was: We do need to omit the political borders when we consider knowledge exchange as very important factor for global food security especially in the case of developing countries (participant from Pakistan). Most of the participants thought and insisted on the language as a very important issue for knowledge exchange. There has been one suggestion to overcome the language barrier: building an organization by the help of the UN to translate the recent knowledge to the most important languages like English, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese. There has been a very important contribution from a participant from Germany, who recommended to build up a mechanism to connect the organization to each other in order to avoid the overlapping in researches and reduce the expenditures on this regards. Another participants insisted on the importance of sharing the knowledge of the negative results and she believed that these will be of great importance in order to save costs and the efforts. One scientist from India mentioned that facilitating the accessibility to internet and supporting social media in developing countries as a facility of knowledge exchange is very important. Many European participants insisted on organizing trainings and sending experts to developing countries as an optimal facility for knowledge exchange. A woman from the Netherlands recommended to promote the current situation of knowledge exchange through organization already involved in this task like:
http://www.isaaa.org
http://www.cimmyt.org/en/projects/water-efficient-maize-for-africa-wema-phase-ii
http://ipbo.vib-ugent.be

In the end, many thanks for the great participation and sorry for those who did not find their contribution in the current report.

Ali Al Masri and Marlene Leucker