Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) has fully incorporated nuclear technology applications into agricultural research. In the past few decades, Chinese agricultural scientists have increasingly used nuclear and isotope techniques in crop production. In cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), they are helping experts in Asia to use radiation mutagenesis techniques to cultivate new crop varieties.
In many countries, nuclear agronomic research is carried out at nuclear energy institutions independent of national agricultural research institutions, but China has incorporated nuclear technology applications into the research work of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and provincial agricultural academies, which would ensure the rapid application of nuclear agronomic techniques in agriculture.
Totti Tjiptosumirat, director of the Center for Isotope and Radiation Applications of National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN) in Indonesia, said that BATAN is seeking cooperation with CAAS in the field of plant mutagenesis, and Indonesian researchers are looking forward to learning from the successful experience of Chinese plant mutation breeding. He said: “Actively promoting China’s experience in the field of plant mutation breeding will benefit agricultural research in all Asian countries.”
