Western representatives at the ISS.

Western students Bethanie Haas and Terry Lim recently represented the School of Science at the 20th Annual International Students’ Summit on Food, Agriculture and the Environment (ISS) hosted by the Tokyo University of Agriculture, or Nodai. Bethanie, a Science undergraduate student, and Terry, a PhD candidate, presented to the ISS on Western’s Smart Greenhouse research, as well as attending presentations by students around the on their research. For the first time, the ISS was held completely online.

Terry’s research into smart greenhouses is focused on creating low-cost technologies to protect crops from excessive heat in tropical and arid regions of the world. Currently, the technology required to keep greenhouse crops from overheating has high running costs. The team Terry is working with, led by Professor Zhonghua Chen, is focused on creating technologies that can be applied to existing greenhouse structures, removing the large capital costs that are often associated with new farming technology.

As well as sharing some of their research findings with the Summit delegates, Bethanie and Terry both attended presentations by other researchers. “Food security is a really complex problem with a lot of causes,” said Bethanie, “so it was great to see that it’s an issue being tackled in really complex ways. About half of the participants were doing research into the scientific side of food production, but there were other researchers who were doing research on changing cultural attitudes, education and addressing the economic issues of food security.”

“It was great to see what other people are doing in their research,” said Terry. “It’s interesting to see other people’s methods, and the approach they’re taken. It’s definitely given me a better understanding of the problems we’re trying to solve.”