On Dec. 9, 2022, the International University Consortium for Agricultural Engineering (IUCAE) Annual Conference and The 2nd Session of Empowering Rostrum for Innovation and Development (ERID) was held at Jiangsu University (JSU). The conference's theme for this year was Intelligent Machinery and Smart Agriculture. It attracted more than 100 online and offline participants, including presidents, academic leaders, department leaders, and representatives of teachers and students from member universities of IUCAE. The conference released the IUCAE’s annual work report and the information on the cooperation and talent needs of JSU and discussed the development vision and implementation path of IUCAE. The 2nd Session of ERID was held after the annual conference. Deputy Director of the International Office of JSU Feng Yun hosted the annual conference.
Chair of IUCAE, JSU President Prof. Yan Xiaohong, extended a warm welcome to all the participants and made the IUCAE’s annual work report in 2022. Prof. Yan pointed out that in the past year, member universities have strengthened international cooperation in education, deepened scientific and technological cooperation, and achieved outstanding results in the joint cultivation of talents. He proposed that to respond to the changes of the times, we’d better focus on building the IUCAE's special brand activity－ERID, establishing a regular interaction mechanism for members, and exploring a more feasible model for the development and operation of IUCAE.

On behalf of the Chair University, JSU Vice President Prof. Zhao Yutao announced the appointment of Prof. Sun Jianzhong as the Executive Secretary, launched the ERID, released information on cooperation and talent needs of JSU in agricultural engineering and related fields, and highlighted the "Belt and Road" collaborative doctorate programs for faculty members and the 2+2 English-taught programs for undergraduates offered by JSU.

Vice-Rector of Mordovia State University (Russia), Prof. Davydkin, expressed his appreciation for the achievements of IUCAE in recent years and his willingness to further cooperate with the member universities on education and research in the field of smart agriculture and high-level agricultural technology. On behalf of the Rector, Director of the International Office of Tanta University (Egypt), Prof. Saleh Shalabi fully affirmed the role of IUCAE in promoting the development of agricultural engineering and expressed his willingness to share scientific and technological achievements and promoting exchange and cooperation with other member universities. Other member universities also shared their remarkable progress in the research on agricultural product breeding, agricultural Internet of Things, agricultural mapping, and data analysis technology. They expressed the need to deepen cooperation under IUCAE.

Vice President and Chief Engineer of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Mechanization Sciences, Prof. Fang Xianfa, made a keynote speech entitled "Agricultural Equipment Technology in Progress." The speech focused on the frontiers of research and development of agricultural equipment, the main features of the new generation of intelligent agricultural machinery, the agricultural equipment technology research framework, and the prospect of the agricultural equipment industry in four aspects of the agricultural equipment type, pointing out the potential space of the agricultural equipment industry and predicting the future technical means.

After the annual conference, the second ERID forum was held, building a broad vision for developing intelligent agricultural machinery and smart agriculture. The Executive Secretary-General of IUCAE, Prof. Sun Jianzhong, chaired the forum. Three experts shared their views from different perspectives.
In his report "Emerging Wearable Sensing Technology and Devices for Plant Health Monitoring," Zhejiang University Prof. Ying Yibin shared his pioneering work on intelligent sensing research of agricultural information, including passive wireless sensing technology, wearable electronic devices, plant physiology, analytical chemistry, and other new intelligent sensing.

Professor Naoshi Kondo, from Kyoto University (Japan), the famous scientist in the field of agricultural engineering and the "father of Japanese agricultural robots," introduced his contributions in the field of fruit and vegetable picking robots, as well as food and agricultural product quality and safety evaluation and intelligent agricultural equipment development in the report "Small-scale Smart Agriculture Leading Super Precision Agriculture."

In the report "Development Opportunities and Challenges of Agricultural Robotics," Prof. Liu Jizhan from our School of Agricultural Engineering introduced the development history of agricultural robots, compared and analyzed the gap between domestic and foreign, and predicted the development direction of China's agricultural robotics research field.

IUCAE was established in 2019 and co-sponsored by JSU and Zhejiang University, with JSU as the Chair University. After three-year’s development, the consortium has 43 universities from 23 countries and regions, including 11 domestic and 32 foreign universities.