Where can one find the world's largest collection of vegetable seeds? The answer is the Tainan-based Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC), the only international organization that has its headquarters in Taiwan.
The center has an impressive track record of eliminating malnutrition and poverty in developing countries by improving the production and quality of vegetables.
Yet, the center is standing at a crossroads as it marches toward its 30th birthday.
"We want to become more relevant to the needs of society," said Thomas A. Lumpkin, the newly installed director general of the AVRDC, at a briefing in the center yesterday morning during a visit by Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新).
"However, we have big concerns. Our research and development efforts are in decline," added Lumpkin, who joined the center on Jan. 1.
The center's budget has been decreased -- and it offers uncompetitive salaries, suffers from vacancies in key positions and has decaying and obsolete facilities and equipment. These factors have all inhibited the center's ambition to revamp itself, he said.
What the center desperately needs from Taiwan -- the top donor country for the center, contributing one-third of the annual budget -- is some money to "prime the pump," said Lumpkin, a former chairman of the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Washington State University and a former professor of Agronomy at the same university.
"We need to hire five or eight or ten internationally recruited staff very quickly so that we can bring these young people on board with great ideas to write proposals to governments around the world and to fund agencies around the world," he said in a question-and-answer session with the press.
*The center's budget has been decreased and it offers uncompetitive salaries, suffers from vacancies in key positions and has decaying and obsolete facilities and equipment.
* These factors have all inhibited the center's ambition to revamp itself and modernize its R&D capabilities.
* Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien visited the center in Tainan yesterday.
* He said it is his hope that his ministry could help the center to solve its problems.
* Taiwan is the top donor country for the center, contributing one-third of its annual budget.
"Through that, we can quickly improve our reputation and boost our funding," he added.
Taipei-based representatives from AVRDC donor countries like South Korea, Thailand, Australia and the US also joined the foreign minister on his one-day visit to the center.
Chien said that, despite the center's achievements in the past three decades, there's no denying that the center is now confronted with shortages in its funding, personnel and even land area on which to operate.
"It's my hope that the foreign ministry can help the center to solve its financial problems," Chien told the press during a field visit to the center's observation plot.
"Because of its nature as an international organization, we hope other countries can join us to assist the center financially," he added.
A foreign-ministry official said upon concluding the trip that the ministry must still review the center's new proposal before contemplating the extent to which the ministry can increase its annual aid to the center.
The minister also said the 100 hectares of land that the center currently occupies "is too small," especially in view of the fast urbanization of the area around the center.
But both Chien and Lumpkin agreed that the center's relocation plan has yet to be completed.
When asked if the center can be of help to local farmers to reduce production costs and increase knowledge of their craft -- in view of increased competition caused by Taiwan's entry into the WTO, the center's chief said Taiwan's farmers may benefit "by spin-off," although the key focus of the center is to help poor people around the world.
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