Preface

Abstract

International Conference on World Technological Trends in Agribusiness (WTTA 2021) was held at Omsk State Agrarian University, Omsk, Russia on 29-30 March 2021. WTTA 2021 aimed to develop scientific cooperation between Russian and international researchers in the field of agrotechnologies.The conference has become an agriculture forum for researchers, practitioners, and scholars to discuss the most recent developments in agro engineering, agriculture, and melioration. The participants have presented innovative engineering solutions for automated crop production and cattle breeding. A range of technological advances for the treatment, processing, and storage of vegetal raw materials and livestock products has been presented. Environmentally friendly agricultural solutions turned out to be quite a topical issue to explore.Due to the CoViD-19 pandemic, the conference was held in a mixed format. The majority of the local participants deliver their reports at the venue. At the same time, almost all non-local authors made presentations via videoconferencing.There were about 170 papers submitted for the conference. After the reviewing process, 121 of them were selected and approved for the meetings. Unfortunately, not all the authors managed to attend the venue or join the meetings virtually. Only 108 out of 121 accepted reports were delivered. In the course of the discussion, the authors of two dozen reports got a recommendation for the revision to be applied prior to publication. After the final editorial check, only 100 manuscripts were considered ready to be published in WTTA 2021 proceedings.This year virtual participation was organized using the Zoom platform. Remote technologies made it possible to make presentations for participants from Stavropol State Agrarian University, Federal Research Centre of Biological Systems and Agrotechnologies (RAS, Orenburg), Altai State University, Mari State University, Krasnoyarsk Research Center (RAS, Krasnoyarsk), Ingush Agricultural Research Institute, etc.At the time of the conference, Omsk State Agrarian University did not use the Zoom platform as the main tool for organizing distance education. In this regard, Zoom was used as a short-term trial period, which determined the tight timing of the main conference meetings.During the conference, five conference rooms equipped for videoconferencing were used. A special group of volunteer moderators was created to ensure the integrity of discussion and involvement of both local and virtual participants. The main task for the moderators was to repeat the audience’s questions to the virtual participants. Besides, they provided the right to a voice question to registered participants and read questions from listeners sent to the chat.Holding the conference in such a format has become a new and valuable experience for the entire team of organizers. This experience was successful thanks to the participation of the university administration, student volunteers, and assistance from the client department of the Zoom platform. At last, we would like to express our gratitude to the editorial team and reviewers as well as to the conference organizers. We are glad that, despite all the challenges associated with the coronavirus pandemic, we were able to collect and review the papers and prepare the WTTA 2021 proceedings.On behalf of the committee Olga Stepanova Secretary of the conference Assoc. Prof. of Omsk State Agrarian University PROGRAM COMMITTEE, ORGANIZING COMMITTEE are available in this pdf.