The BSE Department and the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) of the Council of Agriculture jointly organized a symposium on "Agricultural Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity". This symposium provided two major discussion themes, including (1) challenges and opportunities for quantifying agricultural biodiversity indicators, and (2) improvement and Implementation strategies and action plans for agricultural biodiversity services. The opening remark of this symposium was delivered by Director Zhuang of the Department of Planning, the Council of Agriculture. This symposium has also invited a number of experts to give lectures, such as Professor Chiu-Chung Young (Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, National Chung Hsing University).

This symposium mentioned that the role of soil microbial diversity in soil fertility and plant growth and health should be strengthened, and soil microbial indicators including genetic, species and ecological diversities should be established to quantify the value of agricultural ecosystem services. Along the away, economic incentives should also be provided, local communities and producers should be encouraged to participate in biodiversity conservation, and residents should be guided to take actions that are beneficial to important species and habitats. Moreover, the recipients of ecological services should be expanded to maintain the value of agricultural biodiversity and healthy ecosystem services. Furthermore, the elements of circular economy should be combined with quantitative indicators of ecosystem services, and the relationship between soil biodiversity indicators and carbon sink functions should be studied, and agricultural carbon sinks should be improved to achieve the National Net-Zero Emission.