Last night, at the foot of the Great Wall and the bank of Gui River, a grand closing ceremony marked the end of the Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition (Expo) 2019. At the Expo Exhibitor Awards Ceremony held on October 8th, the booth of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) won the “Gold Award of International Indoor Area” of Beijing Expo 2019.

Themed on "Live Green, Live Better," the Expo has promoted the concept of green development among the public. In line with the Expo theme, FAO has carried out a series of exhibitions and events at the Expo around the theme of “Nourishing People, Nurturing Planet – A Green World Free from Hunger”, aiming at raising awareness of the public to global challenges encountered in meeting the future needs of the population in terms of food and nutrition.

At the FAO booth of the Expo, the photo exhibitions focused on three themes – Sustainable Agriculture Development, Digital Agriculture and Innovation, and International Cooperation in Agriculture. Mr. Guo, a visitor from Beijing, is most interested in the pictures of South-South Cooperation (SSC) between China and FAO. “The pictures show how the Chinese expert aid the African people, and also let me know that there are still many people suffering from hunger in Africa and other areas. They need our help," he said. In addition, the Sustainable Development Goals Q&A wall at the FAO booth has also attracted many visitors.

Besides the photo exhibitions, FAO has also organized three related activities — an unveiling event of the FAO booth, a meeting on Family Farming, and a dialogue on the Application of AI in Agriculture. The last event has the largest number of participants among the three. It invited a number of industry insiders to discuss cutting-edge technology and its application in this field. For instance, developing agricultural drones for fertilizers / pesticides spraying, using satellites for cropland survey and monitoring, and technologies for automatically detecting animal / crop diseases.

The Expo hosted nearly 3,300 activities and attracted 9.34 million visitors during its 162-day run. The stamp marks of FAO booth have been left on many visitors’ “Expo passports”. Although the Expo has ended, FAO will continue to practice the concept of green development. And we believe that you will do the same.