Skip to main content

China's Vision for Ag Science Cooperation

China's vision for solving global problems through international collaboration in agricultural science under the "one belt-one road" initiative was laid out in an article in State media this week.

The head of China's Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wu Kongming, sees great potential for food production in the abundant water and soil resources and high quality ecological environment of belt-road countries. He said “one belt-one road” agricultural cooperation can promote orderly regional flows of agricultural factors of production and deepen agricultural market integration. Exchange of experience in agricultural development and bringing into play the comparative advantages of each country can maximize the potential for agricultural development, advancing mutually beneficial opportunities for each country, Wu said.

According to the article, China's Ministry of Agriculture drew up a vision for banding together various government departments, research institutes, and agricultural enterprises to carry out global agricultural cooperation in 2014.

Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) International Cooperation Bureau Director Gong Xifeng explained that CAAS now has over 60 foreign agricultural technology projects. China’s seeds, veterinary drugs, machinery, and plant protection technology help “one belt-one road” countries raise production, increase income of farmers, and raise the competitiveness of agricultural products, he said. China’s plan for sharing ag technology features rice, specifically “green super rice” for which they say got aid from Gates Foundation.

The Chinese strategy includes setting up joint laboratories in various countries to take advantage of genetic resources through gene sequencing, developing new varieties, etc. Examples are a joint cotton lab in Uzbekistan and a survey of cotton resources in East Africa.

The Chinese Academy of Ag Sciences sends scholars abroad and are hosting hundreds of grad students and researchers to build goodwill abroad. Mr. Gong said CAAS now has 395 foreign students, of whom 70% are from belt-road countries.

Most Chinese projects abroad are conducted by commercial entities, and CAAS is developing offices and platforms to support companies by supplying them with info about the countries. China also has a plan to nurture a new generation of domestic personnel who can speak foreign languages and understand agricultural technology (a big bottleneck to efforts to go abroad to date) to work in Chinese companies and embassies abroad.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Xi Jinping's Doctoral Thesis

Xi Jinping is the vice president and presumed next president of China but little is known about him. In this post the dimsums blog offers its contribution to the genre of Xi Jinping-ology by conveying Xi's decade-old views on agricultural markets. Ten years ago Xi Jinping wrote a thesis, "Tentative Study of Agricultural Marketization" (中国农村市场化研究) for a Doctor of Law degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a top breeding-ground for Chinese officials. The dimsums blogger has spent several hours poring over the 200-plus page tome to see what it reveals about Dr. Xi. The thesis is remarkably close to what China has been doing lately in agricultural policy, suggesting that Xi (or the person who actually wrote the thesis) has a major say in policy or is at least in agreement with what's being done. There is nothing adventurous, controversial (or insightful) in the thesis. It seems to be the work of a wonkish technocrat who is not prone to talk out of turn or wander from...

Divergence in U.S. & Chinese egg prices

High egg prices are a hot topic in the United States. China, in contrast, has a glut of eggs and depressed prices.  The March 14, 2025 USDA Agricultural Marketing Service weekly eggs market overview reported that U.S. egg prices continued declining during the second week of March as the supply situation improved. No significant highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks have occurred in March and U.S. egg demand is relatively light. The average U.S. wholesale price for Grade A large white eggs was $4.15 per dozen, down sharply from their February peak.  Until 2021, Chinese and U.S. wholesale egg prices had been roughly equal at about $1-to-$2 per dozen with no trend. U.S. prices fluctuated more than Chinese prices, so the U.S. price was sometimes higher, sometimes lower than the Chinese price after converting them to dollars per dozen.  Chinese prices converted using monthly exchange rate and assuming 0.6 kg per dozen. Sources: USDA and China Ministry of Agricult...

China's Corn & Wheat Imports Down 97% From Last Year

China's first customs data for 2025 feature a 97-percent decline in corn and wheat imports from a year earlier. Soybean imports were up slightly by volume (but down in value), and dairy, pork, poultry, and seafood imports rebounded year-on-year. Life was less sweet in China with a 93.7% decline in sugar imports, and drinking appears to be up as wine and beer imports posted gains.   China's agricultural imports for January-February 2025 were down 14.7 percent from a year earlier. The value of farm and food goods imported for the first two months of 2025 totaled $30.7 billion, down $5.26 billion from the same period in 2024. China's exports of agricultural products during January-February totaled $15.2 billion, up $393 million from a year earlier.  Data from China Customs Administration website. As usual, soybeans were the largest component of China's agricultural imports during January-February 2025 with a value of $6.3 billion. Meat imports were valued at $4.1 billion, ...