Good morning everyone. Thank you for the introduction. I’m Kazuhiko Takemoto, from United Nations University. Today, at the opening of the JIRCAS International Symposium 2015, as a co-organizer on the behalf of United Nations University, I'd like to express my words of welcome to all of you to this symposium.
In recent years, as was said by Dr. Iwanaga already, in the area of international development, we see many changes and undertakings. Nutrient improvement, food value chain, and also economic growth quality are now being questioned as keywords for our future direction of development in the developing nations. So, today, you have the symposium where those quality issues of the international agriculture development are going to be discussed. At JIRCAS, much researches are going on, the results of which will be shared with you today. Also, the partners of JIRCAS are also introducing their problems to the symposium today so that we can have a discussion for the future direction of the international agricultural research. We’d like to find the future trajectory for the international agricultural research.
As said by Dr. Iwanaga already, in September of this year, in New York, there was a United Nations Summit, where the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has been successfully adopted. In that discussion, newly developed SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals, capturing attention were ending hunger, food security establishment, and nutrition improvement: those are to be improved. And also, for that matter, promotion of the sustainable agriculture is very important as clearly mentioned in the SDG discussion. 
Now, at our university, in UN University, at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, to create a sustainable future, we are discussing how we can respond to this issue as a policy, and also with our ability to promote projects, we are doing for many regions to make our own contribution to the discussions at the UN. Sustainable agriculture promotion is the area where we are heavily engaged in as researchers. So today’s symposium will be very important, because the discussions will be proactively made in which I take high interest in myself. At this symposium today, Bioversity International Director General, Madame Ann Tutwiler, and Mr. Ichiro Tambo, Director of the JICA Research Institute, will be making keynote speeches, which will be followed by speeches by different professionals and experts from Japan and from outside of Japan. And we will have a discussion after these speeches. Through these discussions today, I would hope that there will be more promotion of the technology for the sustainable agriculture and the collaboration of many different researchers from Japan and from outside of Japan. And also by so doing, I would hope that, through this discussion, we’ll make a contribution to the sustainable development of the agriculture, forestry, fishing, and food industries all over the world. With this wish I left in my message, I thank you very much for your attention and thank for your coming.