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CBA paid a visit to the University of Tokyo and NARO, Japan with fruitful outcome for future international cooperation

Activities
Professor Huu-Sheng Lu, the former Dean of the College of Bioresources and Agriculture (CBA), along with the other CBA professors visited the Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo (GSALS-UTokyo) on May 9, 2023. This visit was the first visit since the pneumonia epidemic in early 2020, and it was also a visit to consolidate the partnership which was already established between CBA and University of Tokyo over the past years. During the trip, the deans of both insitutions discussesed and wanted to develop and promote new academic cooperation projects.
Our visit was received by Dean NAKASHIMA Yasuhiro of the Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, UTokyo and the three deputy deans of the GSALS, the director of the International Center, and one of the Center's teacher. The meeting started with a welcome remark by the deans of CBA-NTU and GSALS-UTokyo. The former dean Prof. Huu-Sheng Lu expressed the purpose of the visit and introduced the new CBA dean Prof. Lin Yu-Pin who took office on August 1 this year, the current vice dean Liu Je-Ruei (also acting as the Director of the International Center for CBA), the Director of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, Prof. Min-Hsiung Pan, and the former dean Yuan-Tay Shyu, and the staff of the International Center for CBA. Dean Lu explained that the future academic core of the CBA will start with global issues such as net zero carbon emissions, smart agriculture, and food safety. In addition to promoting the existing exchange students and postgraduate internship programs between the two universities, CBA also intends to promote cooperation among teachers of different fields. Dean Yasuhiro Nakajima also expressed his interest in the master's and doctoral dual degree programs and mentioned that there are not many cases of dual degree programs in UTokyo. Even so, he is very interested and delighted to cooperation with CBA.
Both CBA-NTU and GSALS-UTokyo will start to formulate the double-degree plan agreement and discuss the implementation details. If all goes well, the double degree program is expected to start in the second half of 2024. At the end of 2023, the bilateral seminars will be held at NTU. CBA will invite Dean Yasuhiro Nakajima and UTokyo speakers to visit NTU. At that time, four institutions, namely the CBA,  the Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering, the School of Forestry Resources and Conservation, and the Department of Veterinary Medicine will hold their own seminars in their respective fields. There will also be in-depth discussions on the details of the double degree program and other cooperation projects.
Follow-up, the CBA group then visited the "National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO)" on May 11. The CBA delegation got reception and met with President KYUMA Kazuo. For this visit, CBA hopes to establish research collaborations on current important issues such as net-zero carbon emissions, smart agriculture, and food safety.
After the welcome meeting, the CBA delegation attended and met the delegates of the Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (NIAES). Director of NIAES, Prof. Yamamoto gave a brief introduction and welcome message to the CBA delegation. Self-introductions were addressed by both CBA and NIAES delegates. Afterwards, arrangements of different units visiting were made in the NARO. The first stop was the Natural Resources Survey Museum, where researcher Dr. Takata introduced the soil inventory system "e-SoilMap II" and demonstrated the website tools. The device can visualize the estimated amount of soil organic carbon in the soil. Later, we visited the automated greenhouse gas (GHG) measurement facility and heard a briefing on soil carbon accumulation research. Next, visit the "Plant Factory" (NARO Tsukuba Plant Factory) inside the National Institute of Vegetable and Floral Science (NIVFS). Finally, the Agricultural Research Institute arranged for our representatives to visit the Research Center for Agricultural Robotics (RCAR).