The United Nations (UN) has declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH-2020).  This will be "to raise awareness of the importance and impacts of plant health in addressing issues of global importance, including hunger, poverty, threats to the environment and economic development". This theme closely encompasses the overall research and education objectives of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria. Appropriately, FABI has committed itself to a broad range of activities relating to plant health and allied to the objectives of the IYPH. Prof Bernard Slippers, Director of FABI, shared with the 300 plus FABI Team, some of the exciting plant-health related activities planned for 2020 during a welcoming event at start of the New Year.  This was followed by an strategic planning event where a large number of FABI M.Sc./PhD students and Postdoctoral Fellows engaged in discussion about a wide range of events and initiatives planned to promote the objective of the IYPH. FABI has also launched a dedicated IYPH page on the FABI website that will highlight events and activities in support of this initiative.