Rector Magnificus Arthur Mol at the Urban Greenhouse Challengekick-off. Photo: Guy Ackermans Student teams taking part in the Urban Greenhouse Challenge (UGC), organised by WUR, have to come up with a design for professional food production in the Chinese city of Dongguan. A site visit was scheduled for February but that has been postponed because of the coronavirus.
The announcement was made by Marta Eggers, one of the UGC organisers. ‘We have postponed the site visit by at least one month. We are keeping close watch on whether the situation in China improves because we do want that visit to take place.’
The aim of the UGC is to explore the potential for urban agriculture, see what innovations are possible and turn them into feasible concepts. A total of 53 multidisciplinary student teams from universities all over the world registered for the second edition of this challenge. An initial selection round reduced the number to 20 teams. The intention was to send a delegation with one or two representatives from each team to Dongguan in February to collect data.
The teams will be told by 24 February whether the site visit will go ahead and if so, when. Eggers: ‘If the situation is safe, we hope to schedule the visit for the week of 30 March. If it’s not safe to visit China at the end of March, we’ll come up with an alternative plan.’
