Dr. Katsuyuki Minami, Director General, and 3 staff members of NIAES visited the Institute of Soil Science (ISS) in Nanjing City, an ancient capital located on the Yangtze River, on July 2 to 5, 2002.  ISS is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the People's Republic of China.  At ISS, the discussion was on the common environmental problems in agro-ecosystems of both countries and concluded with the memorandum of understandings (MOU) to promote the two countries' international research collaboration.

Before the signing ceremony, a seminar was held at the main building of ISS for two days (Photo 1), which was attended by Drs. K. Minami, Y. Hayashi, M. Oka and Mr. K. Watanabe from NIAES, and Dr. Jianmin Zhou, Director, Drs. Linzhang Yang and Xiangui LIN, Deputy Directors and 8 staff members from ISS.  The programs was as follows: 1) introduction of outlines and research activities of both the institutes, 2) discussion on the significance of research collaboration and the content of MOU, and 3) presentation and argument of major current research topics in both institutes.

In the second item of the program, the participants exchanged opinions on the research fields and placement of research subjects in the collaboration suggested by Dr. Minami, and decided on the following three collaborative research fields: 1) Material cycling through atmosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere and biosphere, and the associated environmental changes, 2) Preservation of resilient soil environment, and 3) Monitoring and assessment of bio-sensitive pollutants in agro-ecosystems.   Then, 12 major research topics now being pursued in both institutes were presented in terms of trace gas emissions from the terrestrial ecosystems, soil environmental chemistry and pollution control, and biosafety assessment and biodiversity, and were discussed, so as to mutually understand the collaborative research subjects.

In the afternoon on July 4, the signing ceremony of MOU was held with the conclusion of the seminar (Photo 2).  Drs. Minami and Zohu signed the two copies of MOU on a table decorated with national flags and flowers, and exchanged them in the presence of all participants.  The MOU went into effect that very day for both the institutes.  The conclusion of the MOU between NIAES and ISS was performed in addition to the MOU concluded between NIAES and the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (NIAST), Korea in October 2001.  NIAES have coped with the field of agricultural and environmental researches characterized commonly by the East Asian monsoon conditions in collaboration with the Chinese and Korean institutes.

As a following-up, NIAES held an international workshop on "the Material Circulation through Agro-Ecosystems in East Asia and Assessment of its Environmental Impact," to keep step with ISS and NIAST at EPOCHAL TSUKUBA, Tsukuba, Japan on March 25 to 27, 2003.  The details of the workshop are described in the previous section of this NIAES annual report.