A manual for measures against the sugarcane white leaf disease, which causes great damage in the Asian region especially in Thailand, and created in collaboration with Khon Kaen University etc. was published by the Office of Cane and Sugar Board of Thailand. 

A group of 17 students and 2 teachers from Joso Gakuin Junior High School visited JIRCAS on March 17, 2021 through the “inquiry-based field tour” program of the the Tsukuba Science Tour. Senior Researcher MARUI Junichiro (Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division) gave a presentation on “Research on delicious and useful fermented foods” and introduced Thai fermented rice noodles (khan jeen) and Lao fermented fish sauce (padek).

Final Report Presentation of the 2019 JIRCAS Visiting Research Fellowship Program was held on March 10, 2021. Five foreign researchers from research organizations in developing regions, who have been invited to JIRCAS since October 2019, presented their research results for a year and a half. The visiting research fellows include Dr. Gao Xiang (China), Ms Du Zhumei (China), Dr. Giriraj Kumawat (India), Dr. Luciano Nobuhiro Aoyagi (Brazil) and Dr. Sirilak Baramee (Thailand). After the presentation of research results, President Iwanaga congratulated the graduating fellows and presented them with a certificate of completion.

Dr. NISHIGAKI Tomohiro, Researcher of the Crop, Livestock and Environment Division of JIRCAS received the “Best Presentation Award for Cross-Fertilization” at the Science Academy of Tsukuba (SAT) Technology Showcase 2021 held online on February 19, 2021, for his research on “Development of a rapid soil fertility assessment technique for improving rice production in Madagascar”, and was awarded a certificate of recognition on March 15, 2021.

Five up-and-coming researchers from JIRCAS will talk about the activities of the SATREPS project at the 129th Japanese Society of Tropical Agriculture (JSTA) Public Symposium to be held online.

On February 26, 2021, the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Madagascar visited the demonstration test site of the SATREPS project conducted by JIRCAS in Madagascar, providing an opportunity to promote the phosphorus dipping treatment (P-dipping) technology for rice cultivation and promising breeding lines developed in the project.

The Guinea yam genetic resources collection developed by JIRCAS in collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and the Iwate Biotechnology Research Center, and to be used in improving the efficiency of breeding and cultivation of Guinea yam, was featured as a science news on the website of the Crop Science Society of America. 

In October 2020, Prime Minister Suga declared the goal of realizing a carbon-neutral, decarbonized society by 2050. In response, the government formulated the “Green Growth Strategy with Carbon Neutrality by 2050”. “Development of biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) enhanced varieties to reduce GHGs and water pollutants”, is listed as one of the promising innovations in the action plan in “Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries” sector.

The video featuring each session of the JIRCAS 50th Anniversary International Symposium “The role of international collaboration in agricultural research to address challenges in the post-COVID-19 global food system” is now available at the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd_qmyirYdYordCpUoOqk8QGXDAaCBsxS

ProfessorJames Chukwuma Ogbonna (former Deputy Vice-Chancellor) of the Department of Microbiology, University of Nigeria and a JIRCAS research collaborator was one of the recipients of the Foreign Minister’s Commendation for 2020 as announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.