The environment surrounding the world's food systems and agriculture is changing due to climate change, globalization, and the COVID-19 pandemic etc., and the way food is produced, distributed, and consumed is undergoing a period of transformation. In order to improve nutrition in developing regions, it is important to work across various fields, and research on the quality of indigenous crops and traditional foods in the region is needed. At present, innovative developments such as IoT and next-generation sequencers are making it possible to comprehensively analyze the functionality and processing characteristics of indigenous crops and traditional foods at the molecular level.

We will develop production technologies, breeding materials, and foods that can respond to food and nutrition issues by clarifying the functionality and processing characteristics of various indigenous crop genetic resources (rice, ginger, yam etc.) and traditional foods from Laos, Nigeria, Japan and other countries using advanced technologies.

• Establishment of methods for utilization of indigenous crop genetic resources
• Development of evaluation and processing technologies for new food products
• Development and evaluation of production technologies for high value-added crops

Laos, Thailand, Nigeria

Research institutions, dissemination organizations such as JICA, universities, food and drug manufacturers etc.

MARUYAMA Kyonoshin (Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division)