An international rice genomics center established by National Chung Hsing University and Academia Sinica was inaugurated earlier this week in Greater Taichung.
Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Chen Wen-te (陳文德) said the center’s inauguration marked a milestone in the nation’s agriculture history.
At present, Taiwan’s staple food self-sufficiency rate stands at 32 percent, meaning 68 percent is imported, Chen said.
With the increasing amount of fallow farmland — the result of rapidly declining rice consumption in Taiwan — the government is planning to encourage farmers to grow grains other than rice on their fallow land by buying the crops from them at guaranteed prices to address the country’s over-reliance on imports, Chen said.
The university said that a research team composed of experts from Academia Sinica, the council’s Agricultural Research Institute, and Asian University, led by research fellow at Academia Sinica Yu Shu-may (余淑美), set up a Taiwan Rice Insertional Mutants Database between 2003 and last year, offering valuable information for rice researchers around the world.
Several domestic and foreign research centers, large biotechnology companies and international rice research projects have made good use of the database for commercial research and rice development.
Yu said that the new center is likely to become an international rice genomics research and development base for cultivating rice that requires little water and contains low levels of pesticide residue and fertilizer, and which can be consumed by both humans and livestock.
This will not only help Taiwan’s agricultural sector increase its production value and its international competitiveness, but could also help solve Taiwan’s food self-sufficiency problem, Yu added.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
MORE NEEDED: Recall drives against legislators in Miaoli’s two districts and Hsinchu’s second district were still a few thousand signatures short of the second-stage threshold Campaigners aiming to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday said they expect success in 30 out of 35 districts where drives have passed the second-stage threshold, which would mark a record number of recall votes held at once. Hsinchu County recall campaigners yesterday announced that they reached the second-stage threshold in the recall effort against Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘). A total of 26,414 signatures have been gathered over the past two months, surpassing the 10 percent threshold of 23,287 in Hsinchu County’s second electoral district, chief campaigner Hsieh Ting-ting (謝婷婷) said. “Our target is to gather an additional 1,500 signatures to reach
RSS