Innovation and improvement of technology is essential to sustain the growth of industrial economy. The National Science and Technology Program for Agricultural Biotechnology has been established in accordance with the trend of global industrial development and the national agricultural development policy. It is aimed at continual upgrading of technology for improving production efficiency and international competitiveness, and developing cutting-edge agricultural biotechnology in the Asian-Pacific regions.

The program has been implementing projects for consolidating the basis of sustained technological growth, and for building a system that efficiently couples basic research and industrial production in the manner of direct academic/industrial interaction and cooperation. The Program will fully utilize all existing R&D resources to develop value-added agricultural products, to improve their attributes, and to enhance the profitability and international market share.

The program is jointly supported by the National Science Council, Council of Agriculture, Academia Sinica, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Department of Health ( fig 1.).