Taiwan Ministry of Agriculture and WorldVeg sign a Memorandum of Understanding

Building on 50 years of collaboration, a new Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Taipei on 31 July 2024, by Junne-Jih Chen, Minister of Agriculture, Taiwan, and Marco Wopereis, Director General of the World Vegetable Center. This MoU will further strengthen joint efforts in vegetable science to sustainably improve the health, nutrition, livelihoods and resilience of people worldwide.

WorldVeg Director General Marco Wopereis, and Junne-Jih Chen, Minister of Agriculture, Taiwan

Future joint activities will focus in particular on the development of ‘super resilient’ nutritious vegetable varieties, that can withstand multiple biotic and abiotic stresses that are becoming more severe and frequent with climate change, and that will thrive with fewer inputs in different cropping systems. These efforts will go hand in hand with the development of more sustainable, net-zero, agroecological ways of crop management, building soil and plant health, sequestering carbon, and with reduced reliance on external inputs.

The ultimate objective of this renewed partnership is to contribute to the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG#1 (no poverty), SDG#2 (zero hunger) and SDG#13 (climate), while also impacting on many others. The two organizations commit to promoting joint research and development, capacity strengthening, exchange of information and technology, organizing horticulture-related workshops, training courses and scientific events, and disseminating outputs from collaborative action in particular in low- and middle-income countries, whilst respecting the intellectual property rights of partners and third parties.

The event was well attended, and widely covered in the national press

Minister of Agriculture Junne-Jih Chen noted, “Through the signing of this MoU, we will conduct research with a team-based, systematic, and focused approach on specific themes to address the challenges of climate change. WorldVeg is the only center globally dedicated to vegetable research, and possesses in its genebank the largest public-used vegetable germplasm in the world that can accelerate breeding progress. Today’s signing marks the beginning of a new era, helping to advance research in the domestic vegetable sector.” And Marco Wopereis, WorldVeg Director General added, “From this rock-solid foundation and with our new state-of-the-art facilities and open science agenda, there are many more opportunities to work together, hand in hand, in the years and decades to come.”

The MoU was also signed by the respective Directors of ten Ministry of Agriculture subsidiaries.

⦁ Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (Hsueh-Shih Lin, Director General)

⦁ Agricultural Chemicals Research Institute (Tsyr-Horng Shyu, Director General)

⦁ Taoyuan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (Kun-Feng Kuo, Director)

⦁ Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (Hsiu-Ying Lu, Director)

⦁ Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (Hung-Ying Yang, Director)

⦁ Tainan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (Jeng-Chung Lo, Director)

⦁ Kaohsiung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (Shun-Fa Tai, Director)

⦁ Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (Ta-Chi Yang, Director)

⦁ Taitung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (Hsin-Yen Chen, Director)

⦁ Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station (Ting-Lin Chang, Director)

Hsueh-Shih Lin (center), Director General of Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) and WorldVeg board member, after signing the MoU

All signatory organizations have already been working together in developing joint Vegetable Innovation Programs, and this MoU is an important milestone in formalizing the scope of these partnerships. Now in place, the Taiwan Ministry of Agriculture and the World Vegetable Center can strive in certainty towards meeting their mutual goals.