As base for JIRCAS activities in Southeast Asia, an office was established in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1972. Currently, the liaison office is located in the Department of Agriculture, Thailand, adjacent to Kasetsart University. At the Southeast Asia Liaison Office, JIRCAS conducts research on trends in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries research in Asia, collects local information, and disseminates JIRCAS research results by participating in the Thailand Science and Technology Exhibition and holding seminars.

Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions and is also a heavily impacted economic sector. There is a need to develop and disseminate mitigation technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, as well as adaptation technologies to cope with extreme weather events such as droughts that are becoming more frequent with climate change. On the other hand, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all-solution’ for building sustainable agricultural production that is resilient to climate change, and it is extremely important to take into account the particularities of agricultural production in each country and region. In the project “Development of comprehensive agricultural technologies for climate change mitigation and adaption in Monsoon Asia”, we will develop and implement integrated climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies that will lead to behavioral change among farmers and contribute to the goals of the target countries in the Asian monsoon region.

The World Bank has released an analysis showing that the economic growth rate of developing countries in the Asia-Pacific (EAP) region will slow down significantly from + 5.8% in 2019 to + 2.1 ~ 0.5% in 2020 due to the new coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19). While tourism related services are expected to be the most severely affected, agricultural output is also projected to fall by around 3%. In addition, due to the high percentage of farmers in many countries in the EAP region, there are serious concerns that the income and health of small-scale farmers who have difficulty accessing public social security will be significantly affected. The World Bank is calling for bold national action and the need for deeper international cooperation.

In Japan, rice improvement programs focus on developing varieties with good taste while well adapted to specific local climatic and weather conditions. Rice is also used as one of the staple crops Most of the poor regions of the world are concentrated in the tropics. On the other hand, the growing influence of global warming and increasing frequencies of extreme weather events in recent years have raised serious concerns of the deterioration of both rice quality and yield in the future. Aiming for stable rice production will greatly contribute to poverty alleviation and social stability in these regions, where Japan can play a strategic role to contribute to global food and nutrition security. JIRCAS is pursuing the conservation rice germplasms and breeding materials and development of a database, in order to contribute to the establishment of an international cooperation system for the conservation and use of rice genetic resources.