The JIRCAS Open House was held online from April 18-24, 2022. We wish to thank everyone who participated and joined us. On the last day, April 24 (Sun), a panel discussion on the theme of Changing Africa: Field researchers' views on agriculture and food in Africa was held and streamed live on YouTube.

First, moderator OKA Naoko gave an overview of Africa, including its rapid population growth, large volume of young population, climatic diversity, crop production and food imports, nutritional problems faced by people, lack of fertile soil, and stagnant crop productivity.
 
Next, researchers working in Africa introduced their research activities related to agriculture, food, environment, and nutrition, using abundant photos and videos of research scenarios, local people, farmlands, crops, cuisine, and markets, with the following titles.

• KOIDE Junji: “Knowing the state of agriculture in Africa ~Make haste slowly~”
• NAKAMURA Satoshi: “A journey in search of unused resources to protect Africa's soil”
• TSUJIMOTO Yasuhiro: “The challenge of increasing rice production in Madagascar”
• SHIRATORI Sakiko: “What food do people eat in Africa?”

After that, we exchanged opinions on various topics such as how we became interested in Africa, what made us happy on our research, what we pay attention to for good research, and the significance of collaboration among different fields, while interweaving personal experiences and stories.
 
JIRCAS has identified Africa as one of its priority regions, and researchers from various fields and expertise are pursuing research aimed at improving food production and nutrition in collaboration with local partners. The 8th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 8) will be held on August 27 and 28 in Tunisia. We hope that this panel discussion will serve as a catalyst to raise awareness in Africa.
 
The panel discussion is now available on the JIRCAS YouTube channel archive. Other publicly available contents, such as mini lectures, will also continue to be available. Please take a look and learn more about Africa.

JIRCAS Online Open House 2022　https://www.jircas.go.jp/en/event/2022/openhouse
Panel Discussion Live Streaming Site　https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvFdk5qZWNY

Contributors: OKA Naoko (Rural Development Div.) and SHIRATORI Sakiko (Information and Public Relations Office)