Professor Toru Fujiwara works at the Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo. He is s a Cross-Appointed Faculty, at the International Program in Agricultural Development Studies. His major interests are the low-input agriculture. Mineral nutrients are among the requirements for crop production and fertilization contributed to yield increase in recent years. Fertilization, however, is not sustainable. It has impacts on the environment and uses limited resources and high amounts of energy.
His research extends from basic to applied sciences aiming to contribute to low-input agriculture. In the long history of plant evolution, plants experienced low nutrient environments and modern plants acquired the capacity to adapt low nutrient environments. This capacity is essential for crop production. Understanding such mechanisms of plants will contribute to the future development of crops which require less fertilization for production. Such understanding of plant responses to low nutrient environments is also important as basic scientific knowledge to understand plant behaviour. To achieve this goal, he uses several disciplines and technologies, including plant physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, mathematics, and information technologies.