In April 2021, an editorial in Nature Food pointed out the limitations of approaches that rely solely on technological innovations in achieving food security and sustainability, and discussed the need for traditional knowledge and behavioral change to solve the current food crisis.

 

With the new coronary pandemic affecting every aspect of our lives, the term "new normal" has become a popular topic in the news. In the meteorology, the new normal refers to a data set that is updated every 10 years based weather factors such as average temperature and rainfall over the past 30 years. On May 4, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its 30-year Climate Normals data set for the period 1991-2020, reporting warmer temperatures and increased rainfall across the U.S., but with large spatial and seasonal differences.

At the Climate Change Summit hosted by the Biden administration in late April 2021, a number of countries updated their greenhouse gas reduction targets. According to the Climate Action Tracker, which is run by a group of researchers who estimate the effect of limiting temperature rise based on countries' greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, taking into account recent commitments, temperature rise by the end of the 21st century could be limited to 2.4°C. However, the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal will require further greenhouse gas emission reductions.

In Africa, there are large differences in topography and soil conditions even within a very small region, creating large variations in the yield response to a certain amount of fertilizer recommended within the region and reducing the efficiency of fertilizer use. In response to this, recent attempts have been made to develop decision-making tools for pinpointing and implementing appropriate fertilizer applications using drones and other remote sensing technologies to determine differences in soil conditions within a region at low cost. A JIRCAS paper published in Plant Production Science in 2019, provides a comprehensive review of the problems of insufficient fertilizer inputs and nutrient-poor soils in rice production in Africa, as well as measures to improve them, and received the 18th Japanese Society of Crop Science Best Paper Award.

Rice is one of the world’s three leading cereal crops and is an important food for feeding nearly half of the world's population. However, most of the rice producing areas in the tropics depend completely on rainfed rice cultivation, and the yield is about half that of irrigated rice cultivation. In order to increase yield, it is necessary to overcome the problems of water and nutrient supply. Since 2010, JIRCAS has been conducting research, development and technical validations of the weather-rice-nutrient integrated decision support system (WeRise) in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute through an international research project supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. We have published the results of field validations of WeRise conducted in Southeast Asia in the journal  Agriculture, showing that it will enable the improvement of farming plans for rainfed rice farmers.

Today, April 22nd is Earth Day. It is an international anniversary proposed as a day to think about the global environment. JIRCAS is pursuing research activities aimed at solving global food and environmental problems, and we have released a video introducing our research on the miracle crop "quinoa".

Coral reefs, which are abundantly distributed on tropical and subtropical coasts, are terrains created by organisms called corals. Although the area is only about 0.1% of the earth's surface, about 90,000 species of organisms live in coral reefs and it is an important place from the perspective of biodiversity. However, coral reefs are currently in danger. JIRCAS targets areas in tropical and subtropical islands where coral reefs are distributed. We are implementing a project to develop and demonstrate the technologies for controlling the outflow of soil and excess nutrients from land through appropriate management of forests and farmlands and effective utilization of biological resources such as crop residues. The public mini-lecture “Health checkup for rivers: So many countries, so many ‘rivers’?!” introduces the state of our river water quality surveys and some of the findings. Please take a look!

Fermented foods that make familiar foods delicious and long-lasting have been made all over the world for a long time and are indispensable to our daily lives today. At the ongoing JIRCAS Online Open House from April 12 to 18, we are introducing research results on fermented rice noodles using indica rice, which is a major crop in Southeast Asia, and fish sauce (fermented seasoning) using freshwater fish, which is also an important food in inland areas such as Laos.

Exactly one year ago, on April 15, the Japan National Tourism Organization announced that the number of foreign visitors to Japan in March 2020 was down 93.0% from the same month of the previous year due to overseas travel restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19. Similarly, overseas travel from Japan is also restricted, and even after one year, it is still far from the situation where people can freely travel abroad. In the special site for the JIRCAS Online Open House during the Science and Technology Week, an aerial video on the theme of agriculture and environment in Africa and Asia is now available for viewing. Please enjoy amazing images of the earth.