Biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate due to human economic activities. On July 11, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released a comprehensive review of methodologies for assessing biodiversity values (The Value Assessment), which raised the issue that the value of nature is undervalued in policy and economic decision-making.

The United Nations has released its World Population Prospects 2022 report on the occasion of World Population Day on July 11. The report predicts that the world population will reach 8 billion on November 15, 2022. The report states that reaching 8 billion people is both a cause for celebration and a call to find solutions to the challenges humanity will face in the future.

On July 6, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022, jointly prepared by fFAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, was released. The prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) was estimated to have worsened from 8.0% to 9.3% during 2019-2020, then slowed but increased to 9.8% in 2021, with 702 - 828 million affected by hunger. Meanwhile, inflation meant that 3.1 billion people did not enjoy a healthy diet in 2020, and the report called for a review of policies to make healthy diets more accessible.

It is known that rice is most sensitive to high temperatures during flowering, and that even one hour of exposure to temperatures above 35°C will cause sterility (empty grains) due to lack of fertilization. Based on the unique idea of making rice plants bloom in the cool morning hours to avoid high temperatures during flowering, JIRCAS is conducting research on early-morning flowering (EMF), which makes this possible.

A paper published in the journal Earth's Future reported that by 2050, more than 80% of the world's agricultural area is expected to suffer from agricultural water shortages. To mitigate the effects of water scarcity in future warming, it will be necessary to improve the use of green water, which is brought directly to agricultural lands by rainfall and stored in the soil, through the installation of small reservoirs.

June 29th is designated by the United Nations as the “International Day of the Tropics” to celebrate the extraordinary diversity and highlight the challenges of the tropics. The tropical regions account for 40% of the world's total surface area, approximately 80% of the world's biodiversity, and the majority of the world's diverse languages and cultures. The tropics have experienced significant economic development in recent years, but with the accompanying population growth and urbanization, coupled with climate change, the region faces challenges such as the degradation of the natural environment and ecosystems and a rapid decline in biodiversity. The rich natural environment and diverse biological resources of tropical regions need to be protected as common assets of the Earth.