Director-General visits laboratories of Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture

Vienna - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu today visited the laboratories of the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture in Seibersdorf, about 40 km south of the Austrian capital, as part of the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of FAO’s partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The Director-General said he was excited to see the changes since his last visit to the facility two years ago and underlined the need for UN agencies to “think together, work together, contribute together.”

He started his visit at the Plant Breeding and Genetics Laboratory (PBGL), which focuses on strengthening food security and resilience to climate change through high-yielding crop varieties resistant to disease, drought and other harsh conditions.

The laboratory works on plant breeding programmes using radiation-induced mutation and on promoting diversified crop production and broad crop diversity for sustainable agriculture.

The Director-General encouraged scientists there to carry out plant breeding, not only with reference to scientific parameters such as “most resistant”, or “highest yield”, but also to use criteria which are more fit-for-purpose. In the case of cabbage, he said, these could include “for salad”, “for cooking”, or “for animal feed”.

The FAO Delegation then toured the Insect Pest Control Laboratory, which focuses on fighting key insect pests through the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), a method of birth control applied to target insect pest populations.

The laboratory carries out applied research and method development and improvement, helping Member States adapt and integrate the SIT with other biologically-based methods.

A recent example of the pest control support provided by the Centre was in the Dominican Republic, which in December 2023 faced a resurgence of the Mediterranean fruit fly, following an earlier eradication in 2017. With support from international organizations, including the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre, the Ministry of Agriculture launched an extensive eradication program. By September 2024, the successful eradication was confirmed, as no wild populations remained. The effort involved collaboration among the FAO, IAEA, the International Regional Organization for Plant and Animal Health (OIRSA) and the US Department of Agriculture.

The Director-General next visited the Greenhouse, where he was briefed on the work of the other three nuclear application laboratories.

The Animal Production and Health Laboratory works to strengthen food security and livelihoods through improved livestock productivity and control of transboundary animal and zoonotic diseases. The Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Laboratory focuses on optimizing soil management and agricultural water use efficiency for climate-smart agriculture and on assessing and tracing the fate of radionuclides in soils, crops and agricultural water resources. The role of the Food Safety and Control Laboratory is to establish effective systems to support food authenticity, food traceability and contaminant control, to enhance food safety and international agriculture trade.

Finally, the Director-General visited the New Building provisionally called the Flexible Modular Laboratory 2 (FML2), which is to serve as home to laboratories not yet modernized in the earlier phase of the facility’s renewal initiative.

The Joint FAO/IAEA Centre and its Biotechnology Laboratory coordinates and supports applied research through more than 25 research projects annually where over 400 international and national research institutions and experimental stations cooperate. It also supports more than 200 projects every year to transfer these technologies to Members. The FAO/IAEA Laboratories perform applied and adaptive research and development in order to provide standards, protocols, guidelines, training and specialized services.