On March 17, 2022, JIRCAS held a signing ceremony for a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for joint research with the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), Department of Agriculture, Republic of the Philippines.

The Philippines is a tropical island nation located within the Coral Triangle, an area of rich coral reefs that play key roles in the global carbon cycle.

JIRCAS and SRA will develop soil carbon storage and sustainable sugarcane cultivation technologies that are resilient to climate change, harmonize with the environment, and enable resource recycling in the tropic’s islands. Under the MoU, work plans on three projects (Climate change measures in Monsoon Asia, Yama-Sato-Umi agroecosystem connectivity, and Tropical crop genetic resources) have been agreed.

The signing ceremony was held online with SRA Administrator Hermenegildo R. Serafica attending as a signatory. Mr. Serafica expressed his expectations on research collaboration with JIRCAS toward simultaneous achievement of improving sugarcane cultivation technologies and preserving the natural environment by resource recycling in the face of recent extreme climate and rising fertilizer prices in the Philippines. He also expressed his hope to deepen research collaboration with JIRCAS in the future.