At the 5th Thailand International Symposium on Natural History Museums (TISNHM 2025), held at the National Science Museum of Thailand in Pathum Thani (near Bangkok) from November 27 to 29, 2025, Researcher SAITO Minoru from the Fisheries Division received the Best Oral Presentation Award. The event was organized to share knowledge and techniques related to natural history research and museum exhibitions and brought together researchers, museum professionals, and students from nine countries, mainly in Southeast Asia.
On December 9, 2025, at the 50th Anniversary Ceremony of the Faculty of Agriculture of the National University of Laos (NUOL) held in Vientiane, the capital of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, JIRCAS Senior Researcher MARUI Junichiro was presented with a certificate of appreciation on behalf of the Minister of Education and Sports of Laos by the President of NUOL. The award recognized his long-standing achievements in international collaborative research in the field of fermented foods.
Iron is an essential element for plants, but in many parts of Southeast Asia and Africa, there is an excess supply of iron, which has a negative impact on the growth of plants, especially rice. This article introduces research aimed at elucidating the mechanism behind this "iron toxicity" and discovering rice genes that are important for healthy rice growth even under such conditions.
While Africa is considered one of the world's most promising growth markets, it is also the region with the largest number of people suffering from hunger. One of the causes of hunger is soil degradation. This article introduces research aimed at effectively disseminating the "Fallow Band System" to farmers, which helps protect African soil, stabilize food production, increase farmers' incomes, and reduce hunger and poverty.
The word "knowledge" is associated with what we learn in school classes, but apart from such knowledge, farmers' experiential knowledge, which they acquire through their daily experiences, is called "farmer knowledge." To date, many technologies that are supposed to make sustainable agriculture possible have been disseminated in Africa, but there is a problem that farmers do not use them or stop using them soon after they are used. One possible solution to this problem is to understand "farmer knowledge. If we researchers can understand what farmers value and what they consider difficult in their daily farm work, and how they understand the characteristics of the soil and crops, we believe it will be possible to develop technologies that meet farmers' wishes and disseminate technologies in a way that is easily accepted by farmers.
JIRCAS is pleased to announce the joint symposium with the Embassy of Bolivia in Japan, titled "The Bolivia Symposium—The Charms of Salar de Uyuni, Quinoa, and Llamas", to be held on Monday, May 20, 2024, at the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) Tokyo Headquarters Annex.