A group of 38 first year senior high school students and two teachers from Saitama Prefectural Kumagaya High School visited JIRCAS on November 26 (Friday), 2021 through the "Tsukuba Science Tour". This was the second visit from the school, following November last year. As a safety measure against COVID-19, the students were divided into two groups, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, for introduction of JIRCAS research activities (indoor lecture).

In the morning session, Senior Researcher SHIRATORI Sakiko (Information and Public Relations Office) talked about the state of food security and the global food system, and introduced recent trends and international efforts in addressing malnutrition. She also gave an overview of the research on nutrition being conducted in Madagascar and Burkina Faso. The students asked questions about eating abroad and exchanged opinions on familiar topics such as rice and wheat prices.

In the afternoon session, Project Leader KOBORI Youichi (Crop, Livestock and Environment Division) introduced the causes of outbreaks of transboundary insect pests, which are becoming a global problem, and pest control techniques. He also talked about the surprisingly unknown ecology of insects, and exchanged opinions with the students on how he started his research in this field and how interesting insects are.

This indoor lecture seemed to interest not only the students but also the teachers. We hope that the students will be interested in the SDGs, global food issues, and environmental issues in their future science and technology studies.