The project submitted with the assistance of the Ministry of innovative development of the Republic of Uzbekistan and Professor Kristina Toderich (Tottori University) was approved in the SATREPS-2020 competition (Japan). This project was recognized as the best among 10 international projects selected by the Japanese Agency for science and technology (JST).
This project on the theme “Development of new technologies for monitoring and controlling the use of water resources to combat salinization and improve land productivity and food security in the Aral region ” was developed by The international innovation center of the Aral sea region under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan jointly with Professor Kenji Tanaka and Dr. Temur Huzhanazarov (Kyoto University) together with leading scientists from 8 universities in Japan. On the Uzbek side, the project involves UZGIP LLC, Uzgidromet, the Tashkent Institute of irrigation and agricultural mechanization engineers, the Karakalpak branch of the Tashkent Agricultural University, the Nukus state University, as well as the private sector-PANAEV FARMS and “AKMANGIT-LAKRITSA” in Karakalpakstan.
SATREPS – Japanese government program for the development of joint international research.
The program is based on bilateral cooperation between the Japan Agency for science and technology (JST), the Japan international cooperation Agency (JICA) and the host state.
For fiscal year 2020, JST has submitted 95 project proposals to SATREPS from researchers in Japan in three research areas – environment/energy, bioresources, and disaster prevention and mitigation. A selection Committee consisting of external experts has previously selected 10 new projects – 5 projects collaborating with Asian researchers, 2 projects from Africa, 2 projects from South America and 1 project from Europe.
The SATREPS program is highly competitive, it is selected according to strict technical and scientific criteria, in several stages, and only 10% of all submitted projects pass through the final selection process. The Japan Agency for science and technology (JST) and the Japan international cooperation Agency (JICA) highly appreciated the proposed project, and for the first time the SATREPS program will be presented in Uzbekistan and Central Asia as a whole.
The project with the participation of the Republic of Uzbekistan was selected for the first time, which is why Uzbekistan became 51 of the countries selected for SATREPS projects.
This project provides for direct investment in education and the creation of a modern center for climate change monitoring, meteorological monitoring, as well as the introduction of new Japanese technologies in agriculture in saline conditions in order to increase land productivity and improve the well-being of local communities in conditions of limited water access in the Aral sea region.
The project is aimed at creating a new system of meteorological observations and direct forecasting, as well as scaling up the best Japanese and local technologies for crop diversification and rotation, value-added assessment and marketing of finished agricultural products in conditions of severe salinization, especially in the Amu Darya river Delta, taking into account the requirements developed by the Uzbek side. The implementation of this project is directly aimed at finding adaptation measures to climate change and sustainable development of food security and nutrition quality.
