Salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses that inhibit plant growth and reduce crop yield. There are about 800 million hectares of salt-affected farmland worldwide and this number is predicted to increase. High soil salinity is primarily caused by poor irrigation management and saline groundwater, especially in arid and semi-arid regions, in addition to natural causes. In coastal regions, seawater intrusion can increase soil salinity. Due to climate change and increased population, high-quality water supply has become increasingly limited and competition for high-quality water between urban and agriculture users has become more intense. Use of treated municipal recycled water for irrigating landscapes and other non-traditional waters for irrigating agricultural crops has become a common practice in water scarce regions. Water-intensive operations such as greenhouse and nursery growers are forced to recycle and reuse irrigation water. In these non-traditional water uses, salinity, primarily sodium chloride, is often too high for optimum crop growth and development. Therefore, information on salinity tolerance of horticultural crops is needed in order to sustainably produce horticultural crops in salt-affected lands and use of non-traditional water sources for irrigating horticultural crops. This paper provides a short review on salinity tolerance of the main categories of horticultural crops, including some background information on salinity tolerance assessment methodology.

The achievements from the long term collaborative research efforts between Tokyo University of Agriculture (TUA) and Djibouti were evaluated in terms of adoption of our proposal as one of the governmental important programs targeting global issue supported by JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency) and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), i.e., Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), for FY2018. This project, titled “Project for Advanced and Sustainable Methods on Water Utilization Associated with Greening Potential Evaluation in Djibouti”, was proposed in order to enhance and implement sustainable agro-pastoral system in Djibouti. In this paper, the developed technologies as well as partnership milestones of our 25 years collaboration are reported and the vision of our SATREPS project for next 5 years with expected SDGs to be achieved are introduced.

In the face of the current rapid degradation of steppe ecosystems and feed shortage in Mongolia due to overgrazing, there is an increasing need for the development of prompt management prescription for restoration. Spring burning may enhance the vegetation shift from the dominance of unpalatable forbs to palatable graminoids in degraded steppe formerly dominated by unpalatable forbs, although burning would accelerate the decline of plant production in sparse vegetated grasslands. Achnatherum splendis caught the livestock dung washed away by rain and created the rich mounds, where growth of forbs was enhanced. Our findings illustrate the possibility of using prescribed burning and facilitation by grass as a restoration tool of vegetation and livestock production in degraded Mongolian steppe.

Farming photovoltaics (Solar-sharing) is an effort of farming while power generating by solar power panels in the upper space of farmland together. Renewable energy power, such as photovoltaic power generation, plays important roles such as global warming countermeasures, departure from nuclear power dependence, and energy security policy. In addition to them, Farming photovoltaics has begun to attract attention as a tool for solving problems of agriculture and rural area, for example improving farmer’s income, stabilization of agricultural management through revenue from electricity sales and restore of abandoned farmland, etc. Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is promoting good effort of Farming photovoltaics. From a global perspective, Farming photovoltaics has great potential in terms of the stable supply of food, sustainable and inexpensive power supply by effectively utilizing limited land and water resources. This report describes the background and history of Farming photovoltaics, the expected effects, the current situation and issues, the possibility of overseas expansion, etc.