On August 28, 2021, the 8th lecture of WEBINAR SERIES 2021 “LIVING IN THE NEW NORMAL AND BEYOND” was held by JSPS Alumni Association of the Philippines (JAAP) in partnership with Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Central Luzon State University.

The lecture was opened by welcome remarks by Dr. Edgar A. Orden, President of Central Luzon State University and opening remarks by Dr. Danilda Haufana-Duran, President of JAAP, JSPS RONPAKU and BRIDGE Fellow, and Scientist I, Philippine Carabao Center.

Dr. Edgar A. Orden

Dr. Danilda Haufana-Duran

After the remarks, Dr. Leah J. Buendia, Assistant Secretary for International Cooperation, Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and Dr. Yoshio Otani, Director of JSPS Bangkok Office delivered inspirational messages, respectively.

Dr. Leah J. Buendia

Dr. Yoshio Otani

Following the remarks and messages, a presentation entitled “Present status and future prospect of world crop production and contribution of tropical” was made by Dr. Eiji Nawata, Specially Appointed Professor, International Strategy Office, Kyoto University / Director, Kyoto University ASEAN Center.

Dr. Eiji Nawata

Dr. Eiji Nawata’s presentation

In the seminar, Dr. Nawata showed current status of world food production. He also mentioned that agriculture goes more commercial and concentrated as urbanization progresses, which develops “subsystem agriculture”, a new form of agriculture. Then he introduced his research project “MapNet” to predict the cereal yield of a region (city / province / area / nation). While it is simple to predict the global / a field unit level yields, those of regional level are not easily predicted. The MapNet project tries to do, taking the climate, water availability, flood damage, or insect damage, etc., into account.

After the presentation, questions were made from participants, about his talk and academic contribution to agricultural problems. For these questions, Dr. Nawata answered politely.

Finally, Dr. Maria Rowena Eguia, Vice president of JAAP delivered closing remarks.

Dr. Maria Rowena Eguia

The lecture was streamed at zoom and JAAP Facebook page. It ended successfully with a lot of participants.