Laos and Japan assess joint agricultural research results
The National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) and the National University of Laos (NUOL) together with the Japan International Research Centre for Sciences (JIRCAS) on Wednesday held a workshop to report on the achievements of cooperative projects in the Lao agriculture sector from 2016-2012. Based on the achievements, discussions led by several expert panellists turned to prospects for technical applications or extensions. The workshop was chaired by NAFRI Deputy Director General, Mr Chanhsamone Phongoudome; Vice Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, NUOL, Assoc. Prof. Dr Somphanh Pasouvang; and JIRCAS Programme Director, Dr Yukiyo Yamatomo. Project achievements in 10 fields were presented by researchers, including productivity improvement ad value addition of lowland/upland rice, agricultural management in sloping mountainous areas, nutritional improvement in rural areas, and value addition of fishes and sustainable aquaculture.
NAFRI, NUOL and JIRCAS have operated several joint research projects since 2016 in the northern to mid-southern areas of the country. The first project dealt with multiple use value addition of regional resources for sustainable productivity improvement in semimountainous villages. The second project was the formation of food value chains through value adding for food resources to support sustainable rural development. The third project involved the development of forest technologies in indigenous tree plantations on slopes, with the fourth a development project on the captive breeding of indigenous freshwater shrimps. These projects were run by NAFRI, the Rice Research Centre, Living Aquatic Resources Research Centre, Upland Agriculture Research Centre, Horticulture Research Centre, Forest Research Centre and the Department of Planning and Cooperation, along with the faculties of Water Resources and Agriculture at NUOL. Seven divisions of JIRCAS also took part, namely Social Sciences, Rural Department, Crop/Livestock/Environment, Biological Resource/Post Harvest, Fisheries, and Tropical Agriculture Research Front.
Information source: Vientiane Times.