A group of 15 second-year students and two teachers from Kagawa Prefectural Takamatsu-Kita High School visited JIRCAS on December 19, 2022 as part of their science training. Through the training program, the school is working to increase students' interest in science and raise their career awareness.

After an introduction of JIRCAS research activities, Researcher HOSHIKAWA Ken (Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division) introduced his research on "Global nutrient deficiency and climate change". In this lecture, Dr. Hoshikawa focused on the importance of biodiversity and its use to solve food and environmental problems through his research on tomato genetic resources. He also discussed the characteristics of species and genetic resources that have not been utilized in the past, using Amaranthus as an example, and introduced the use of unutilized genetic resources to solve these problems.

Although the visit was lecture-based, it was impressive to see the students taking notes with enthusiasm. We hope that this visit will be one of the opportunities for the students to become familiar with global food and environmental issues and to think for themselves about how to solve these problems.