The introduction of tropical fruit tree varieties and technologies in response to global warming and other factors has the potential to make a significant contribution to future agricultural development and diversification of food and nutrition sources not only in tropical and subtropical countries but also in Japan. The JIRCAS Tropical Tropical Agriculture Research Front (TARF) located on Ishigaki Island is taking advantage of the climatic and geographical conditions to conserve and evaluate genetic resources of tropical crops, develop breeding materials, and develop varieties and cultivation techniques for the Nansei Islands. We have recently published a manual and explanatory video on virus-free technology for domestic passion fruit growers.

The strength of JIRCAS lies, on the one hand, in understanding and proposing bottom-up approaches to solve problems based on on-site needs in collaboration with local agricultural research, policy, and development organizations, and on the other hand, in disseminating information for solving global issues through collaboration with international agricultural research, policy, and development partners. As we begin FY2022 today, we are reorganizing and launching new projects targeting Africa and the Asia Monsoon region, in order to further demonstrate the strengths in our existing operations.

In Mozambique and other countries located in southern Africa, productivity of ruminant livestock during the dry season declines due to a lack of protein and other nutrients, as well as the amount of feed for ruminants. Therefore, we prepared silages of mainly leafy parts of leguminous woody plants mixed with Napier grass or corn stover, and studied their microbial co-occurrence network and silage fermentation information to determine how they can be used as feed. The results showed that woody plant silage in combination with corn stover had good fermentation quality and improved microbial community and metabolic pathways. This technique is expected to improve livestock productivity in the dry season.

The book "Doing Fieldwork on Fermented Foods in the World" (edited by YOKOYAMA Satoshi), published by the Rural Culture Association, features field studies on fermented foods produced around the world conducted by researchers in the humanities and natural sciences, including the efforts of JIRCAS to improve the quality of fermented freshwater fish sauce in Laos. A special exhibition of the same title will be held at the Nagoya University Museum from March 22 (Tue) to September 24 (Sat), 2022.

Global climate change may have a significant impact on the distribution, growth rate, and carbon fixation of the trees that make up forests. It is especially important to accurately predict the effects of climate change on tropical rainforests because of the huge size of the trees and the large amount of carbon stored in them. However, in tropical rainforests, where the climate is hot and rainy throughout the year and there is no seasonality, it has been difficult to determine long-term growth rates from annual tree rings. We established a new technique for accurately identifying past growth rates from radiocarbon isotope concentrations in the wood of rainforest trees in a Malaysia.

March 22 is World Water Day, a day to raise awareness of the importance of water in various countries around the world. This year's theme is "Groundwater – Making the invisible visible”. One in five children in the world does not have access to enough water for their daily needs. In rural areas of developing countries, drinking well water contains high concentrations of nitrate nitrogen derived from nitrogen fertilizers, which can be hazardous to people's health. Along with the need for infrastructure development to provide safe drinking water, efforts are required to improve the efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer use in the fields and to reduce nitrate-nitrogen concentrations in groundwater.

Blast disease, caused by a type of filamentous fungus (Pyricularia oryzae), occurs in all regions where rice is grown, from tropical to temperate zones. Blast disease is caused by the repeated use of a single rice cultivar over a wide area (monoculture), which results in a dominant race of fungi capable of infecting that particular resistant cultivar, and is induced by low temperatures during the growing season, such as cold injury, and excessive application of fertilizer. Damage is increasingly being reported not only in temperate regions but also in tropical regions of Africa and Asia. Breeding rice cultivars that take advantage of genetic diversity and developing cultivation methods will be important for rice cultivation, especially in economically poor developing regions.

The year 2022 has been designated as the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture. It is extremely important to understand the actual situation for the promotion of small-scale fishery and aquaculture workers. However, catch statistics, which serve as basic data for fisheries management, often provide sample data on a limited number of species caught by large-scale fisheries in developing countries, and the catch and operational status of small-scale surface fisheries are largely unknown. Since many small-scale marine fisheries in Cambodia are operated by fishers, Tokai University and JIRCAS analyzed the actual situation with the cooperation of the Cambodian government.

It has been two full years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Pandemics are extremely costly, and prevention is more effective in reducing the incidence of the zoonotic diseases that cause them. Prevention of pandemics and zoonoses requires monitoring of the food system, which is the largest factor in biodiversity loss and land use change.