Local, foreign researchers win agricultural excellence awards

This article was written by Allen Hsu and published by the Taiwan Journal on February 24, 2006. It features Taiwan's Presidential Awards for Agricultural Excellence, whose winners were announced recently by the Council of Agriculture.

The article begins by pointing out that in 1999, Taiwanese scientist Chang Te-tzu was honoured in Los Angeles with the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Chang is the acknowledged world authority on rice genetics and preservation of rice germplasms from around the world, having served as the principal geneticist of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

Taiwan established the prestigious Presidential Awards for Agricultural Excellence in 2005, to honor those individuals and organizations dedicated to agricultural research and the dissemination of agricultural know-how. There are three categories of awards, and each award carries a cash prize of US$31,000.

The Food Security Award was given to the Mungbean Green Revolution Team of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center, which is based in southern Taiwan's Tainan County. The center, which began its operations in 1973, is an internationally renowned research institute funded by the Asian Development Bank and the governments of Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. The Mungbean Green Revolution Team has been working on mungbean breeding and educational programs since 1974 and its research results have benefited numerous farmers in Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

The Agricultural Innovation Award was given to the Taiwan Animal Cloning and Transgenic Research Team. The team comprises senior researchers from the National Taiwan University, the National Chung Hsing University, the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, and the I Mei Foods Co. Ltd. These researchers have demonstrated that cloned sheep can naturally reproduce while retaining genetically modified traits. Their cloned sheep "Bao-Yu", which was genetically modified to produce milk that contains the medically valuable human coagulation factor VIII, naturally reproduced the offspring "Bao-Bay" that carries the same coagulation factor. The team is also successful in cloning cows that yield milk with very high protein content, and in its freezing technology that is used to preserve the genetic material of Taiwan's bovine and other animal breeds, with significant commercial applications.

The Agricultural Equilibrium Award was given to Su Hong-zi, a retired Taiwan National University professor. Su is widely recognized for his pioneering research on citrus and banana diseases, and the contribution made by such research to the welfare of people in developing countries. The biotechnological diagnosis, de-virulence and disease-prevention techniques developed by Su have all been widely adopted in Taiwan and overseas. More significantly, Su's research results have played a key role in Taiwan's foreign aid and overseas agricultural projects over the past decade.