The "Sino-Japanese Cooperative Rice Breeding Conference on the Spot" was held in Yunnan, China, Sept. 4-9, 1987. The objective was to allow both Chinese and Japanese leaders concerned and the cooperation group's experts to discuss problems on the spot, summarize the findings and experiences obtained during the first two stages of the cooperation, receive comments from experts and professors from both countries, consider further development of the project and work out the objectives and the corresponding measures to take in the next step in order to achieve even greater results in future.
The participants included: Japanese specialists headed by Toshihiro Kajiwara, Director General of the Tropical Agriculture Research Center of Japan; leaders and specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fishery of China, China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China Rice Research Institute, academies of agricultural science of Shanghai, Guangdong, Sichuang and Guizhou, agricultural departments of provincial, regional and municipal governments from Yunnan, 61 participants in all.
During the conference, Wu Ziqiang, president of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences gave the opening address. Toshihiro Kajiwara, Zhu Pirong (Chief official of the Foreign Affairs Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fishery) and Dao Guodong (Vice-Governor of Yunnan Province) addressed the conference, respectively.They appreciated the spirit of cooperation of the two countries and celebrated the success achieved through joint effort.
During the conference, experts and professors of the two countries visited Shuangshao experimental fields in the cold mountainous region, Yiliang experimental fields in the central-northern part of Yunnan, and observed the newly bred lines, Cooperation 1-12, in the fields at Liangyuan, near the Western Hills of Kunming. The delegates observed and discussed problems in detail in the fields. After the study tour, delegates from both countries spent one day and a half to proceed to broad exchanges of views about problems relating to breeding, disease resistance and cold tolerance in rice.
After having studied the problems attentively and discussed them thoroughly during the 6 days' conference, the experts agreed that the Sino-Japan cooperation in rice breeding initiated in 1980, had succeeded in accomplishing the first two stages of the project during the five year period as follows: 1) 13 lines had been bred, 2) the stage of regional experiments for adaptabilities had been reached and 3) the present achievements had contributed to research for the development of breeding methods, varietal and strain tolerance to cold as well as characterization of disease resistance and genetics.