1347. JIRCAS International Symposium 2025

It has been four years since the UN Secretary-General convened the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in September 2021, which put food at the heart of efforts to end poverty, eliminate hunger, reduce inequalities, combat climate change, and protect biodiversity. Prior to that milestone event, in May 2021, Japan formulated the Strategy for Sustainable Food Systems, “MIDORI,” aimed to enhance agricultural productivity potential and sustainability through innovation. 
 
Since then, the world has witnessed remarkable changes and uncertainties in the global food system landscape. As it struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of geo-political events raised questions over food security with the prices of fuel, fertilizer, and food reaching record highs in 2022, particularly in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the average global temperature has continued to rise adversely impacting food production. In January 2025, it was confirmed that 2024 was the hottest calendar year on record, with the average temperature exceeding, for the first time,  1.5°C above the pre-industrial level – the threshold of the Paris Agreement.   

Despite the situation, momentum is building up behind the transformation of food systems at the global, regional, and country levels. For example, at COP28, the “Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action” was adopted in December 2023, calling for the sustainable development of the agri-food sector and for strengthening collaborative measures to tackle climate change. Likewise, in the Asia-Monsoon region, particularly in Southeast Asia, the ASEAN Regional Guidelines for Sustainable Agriculture in ASEAN was adopted in October 2022, as was the Japan-ASEAN MIDORI Cooperation Plan in October 2023. And ahead of COP30, in June 2025, the Japanese Government unveiled a renewed initiative, ‘MIDORI Infinity’ (Initiative for Net-zero compatible with Food security through INternational expansion of Japan’s Innovative TechnologY), which aims to encourage the scaling up of Japan's GHG emission reduction technologies and to attract decarbonization investment in the agriculture and food sectors in the Global South. 

In all these times, the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) has been actively conducting the Green Asia Project, which ends in March 2026, in cooperation with many other research institutes in Japan and in the Asia-Monsoon region. Against this backdrop, the symposium will take stock of various activities in the transformation of food systems from a global perspective, focusing on the Green Asia project, with a view to demonstrate its achievements and identify lessons applicable to other contexts.

JIRCAS International Symposium 2025
Accelerating Application of Agricultural Technologies in the Asia-Monsoon Region: Taking Stock and the Way Forward for Enhancing Production Potentials and Sustainable Food Systems

Date: 2025-10-27(Mon) 13:30～17:30 (13:00 Admission) (JST)
Place: "Hitotsubashi Hall" and On-line 
Event Site: https://www.jircas.go.jp/en/symposium/2025/e20251027_jircas

Contributed by: JIRCAS International Symposium 2025 Secretariat