On December 6, 2021, the 29th annual conference of the International Scientific Centre of Fertilizers (Centre International des Engrais Chimiques, CIEC), themed as "Challenges of food production and fertilization in a VIRTUAL world," was held in Shenyang in offline and live streaming mode. 

The annual conference was co-organized by the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the German Federal Agricultural Research Center, and the Soil Society of Liaoning Province. 

The CIEC, founded in 1933, is the oldest and most famous science and technology exchange center and one of the only two non-profit international organizations in the fertilizer industry. To date, it has organized 17 World Fertilizer Conferences and 28 academic annual conferences.  

More than 110 experts, scholars and graduate students from universities and research institutes from more than 10 countries including China, Greece, Germany, Estonia, Egypt and Turkey attended the event. More than 10 experts delivered keynote talks on the latest progress and future development trends in the field of fertilizer research and application. 

The opening ceremony was presided over by Silvia Haneklaus, CIEC Secretary-General and professor of the German Federal Institute for Crop Research. The CIEC Chairman JI Lanzhu and honorary Chairman Ewald Schnug delivered opening speeches respectively. 

At the closing ceremony, Dr. Shi Yuanliang, vice Chairman of CIEC, announced that the 2022 Annual Conference of CIEC will be held in Cairo, Egypt in November 2022, and the 18th World Fertilizer Conference will be held in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China in early August 2022. 

In the context of the global fight against the epidemic of COVID-19, this conference has been a success for developing soil nutrition and fertilizer research and the world's fertilizer industry. 

For more information about the conference, please visit: https://ciec.iae.ac.cn/