Professor Rene Villano recently travelled to the Philippines to attend at the 6^th Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Energy Conference (SAFE2018). This conference is hosted by the SAFE-Network – an Asia Pacific network of university and college educators and researchers aimed in fostering collaboration and increasing the capacity of the scientific community to address major sustainability challenges in agriculture, food and energy.  UNE is one of the pioneering members of this network.

With Dr Novizar Nazir (Chairperson of SAFE-Network from Andalas Univeristy, Indonesia) and Dr Irawati Chaniago (UNE Alumna, Safe-Network Executive Secretary).

This year’s conference focused on multi-disciplinary research with an overall theme of ‘Inclusive Agri-food Energy Production for Community Empowerment in a Changing Climate’. Rene’s paper focused on the ‘Economics of Organic Rice Farming in the Philippines’, co-authored with collaborators from the Central Bicol State University of Agriculture – Philippines.

While in the country, Rene took the opportunity to advance the discussion on future collaborative research activities, and possibly a memorandum of understanding with the Central Bicol State University of Agriculture on areas of student exchange and collaboration in research, teaching and curriculum development.

Rene was so pleased for the opportunity to visit his dear alma mater. “The institution that supported my quest to go to Australia in the early 1990s – and that is where my journey has begun.”

With Professor Rolando de Asis (President of Central Bicol University of Agriculture , Phillipines) and selected delegates.