The International Symposium on Sustainable Land Management was held in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, West Africa, from May 17-20, 2021. The symposium was organized by the Soil Science Society of Burkina Faso, co-organized by the National Academy of Arts, Culture and Science of Burkina Faso and the Interstate Standing Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, and supported by JIRCAS and the Japanese Society for Tropical Agriculture.

Today, June 10, is the anniversary of the founding of JIRCAS. It has been 51 years since the predecessor of JIRCAS, the Tropical Agriculture Research Center, was established. We have started a Twitter account to coincide with today's anniversary.

https://twitter.com/jircas_direct

The Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) is now accepting applications for fixed-term employment of young researchers.

Two proposals from JIRCAS have been provisionally selected1 for FY 2021 SATREPS (Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development) project, which is a collaboration between the Japan Science Technology Agency (JST) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) supported by MEXT and MOFA.

The President of the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency (FRA), Dr. NAKAYAMA Ichiro, visited JIRCAS on May 20, 2021 and exchanged opinions with JIRCAS President KOYAMA Osamu and other executive staff. The two presidents, who took office in April this year, introduced the new structure of their respective organizations in response to the newly launched 5th Medium to Long-term Plan.

BNI technology was featured in the “Green Food System Strategy” to achieve both productivity and sustainability of food, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries industries through innovation.

The proceedings of the JIRCAS-FFTC International Rice Blast Workshop held on September 18, 2020 have been published and now available for downloaded from the FFTC website.

The Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Liaison Office in Japan, Ms. HIBI Eriko, and Senior Advisor MITSUGI Hiroto visited JIRCAS on April 16, 2021 and exchanged opinions on strengthening cooperation with President KOYAMA Osamu and JIRCAS Special Advisor Dr. IWANAGA Masa.

The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Burkina Paso, His Excellency Mr. Pascal Batjobo, visited JIRCAS on April 20, 2021 and exchanged opinions with President Koyama and other executive staff.

Dr. TSUJIMOTO Yasuhiro, Project Leader and Senior Researcher of the Crop, Livestock and Environment Division, received the 18th Japanese Society of Crop Science Best Paper Award for the paper titled “Challenges and opportunities for improving N use efficiency for rice production in sub-Saharan Africa”.