The First Agricultural Conference for the Agricultural Engineers Association titled "Reality and Challenges" was held under the patronage of An Najah University President, Prof. Rami Hamdallah, and the Palestinian Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Ismail Du'eik at the Martyr Zafer Al-Masri Auditoriums at the Old Campus. Attended the conference also were Saqer Nazzal, Chairman of the Agricultural Engineers Association, and Mazen Sinokrot, Director of Sinokrot Global Group.

In his speech, Prof. Hamdallah said that agriculture is a major part of the Palestinian heritage and plays an important role in the purification of the environment, and the maintenance of water resources. He also highlighted the obstacles that influence the agricultural sector in Palestine such as the many acts done by the occupation, as well as the high prices of agriculture equipments like pesticides and fertilizers. Therefore, he said that the University, through the Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary, holds lectures and seminars, offers awareness plans and consultancies, and conducts researches in order to support farmers.

Engineer Nazzal said that this conference comes to focus on the agricultural sector through the participation of agricultural unions and the Palestinian universities. He pointed out the importance of developing agriculture in Palestine through providing necessary policies, techniques and support. On his part, Dr. Du'eik assured that the Ministry of Agriculture seeks to support Palestinian agricultural engineers through offering different training courses, and that the Ministry seeks to send delegations to other countries to transfer the Palestinian agricultural experience through a number of experts. Engineer Sinokrot also spoke about the relationship between the agricultural sector and the national economy and called for more efforts to support agriculture in Palestine. The conference discussed several work papers that discussed plant protection and production, agriculture science, studies about plant immunity against diseases and pests, amount of precipitation, supplementary irrigation, researches on local corps and others.