At the invitation of Dr Thomas Lumpkin, the Director General of the World Vegetable Centre (AVRDC), Professor David Midmore visited its headquarters in Tainan, Taiwan to discuss potential research co-operation in the area of Horticultural Research.

Prior to employment at CQU, Professor Midmore was the Director of the Production Systems Program at AVRDC.

The World Vegetable Centre is spearheading an international push to set up a Global Horticulture Initiative, to capitalize upon research advances in horticulture in the developed world for the good of developing nations; for income generation and for food security.

While at AVRDC, Professor Midmore gave a seminar to the staff entitled: \'Recent innovations relating to production and quality aspects for horticulture\'.

This was followed by discussions as to ways to strengthen co-operation between CQU and AVRDC; one avenue is through a currently-funded USAID project on sloping land agriculture, running in Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, for which both AVRDC and CQU are recipients of funding.

AVRDC has recently signed a contract with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) to study the whole supply and demand chain for chili peppers in Indonesia.

Similar opportunities exist for CQU to gain cooperative funding along the same lines from ACIAR.

Professor Midmore has historically been funded by ACIAR to research bamboo in both the Philippines and Australia.

Photo (above): Staff explain some of the recent advances in AVRDC research.

Photo (below): AVRDC headquarters in Taiwan.