Program on Senior Agri Experts to Africa Summarized in Beijing

Source: www.farmer.com.cn - Farmers Daily

Author: Long Xin

On Nov. 12, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) held a meeting to wrap up the program on senior agricultural experts sent to African counties for providing assistance. Niu Dun, Vice Minister of Agriculture, attended and addressed the meeting. He spoke highly of the fruitful work done by the senior agricultural experts and put forward the requirement for higher quality and level of agricultural assistance to African countries.

In order to put into practice the spirit of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in 2006, China had dispatched 104 senior agricultural experts to 33 African countries since Aug. 2008. When these experts stayed in the aid recipient countries, they offered more than 400 information and policy proposals to those countries after carrying out in-depth investigation and obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the local agricultural status. They finished country research reports and feasibility reports on agricultural investment projects of 1.55 million characters; carried out 184 experiment and demonstration projects in a number of fields, such as grains, vegetables, aquatic products, livestock production, and irrigation; and organized 157 training courses for 3788 persons and field instruction activities for 922 person times, and provided 124 copies of training materials of over 990,000 words to those African countries. Meanwhile, they actively facilitated the cooperation between agricultural agencies, colleges and universities and enterprises of China and their host countries by serving as a bridge between the two sides. The recipient countries highly commended the work done by the Chinese senior agricultural experts. Some presented medals to the experts and most of the countries requested continued dispatch of experts.

The meeting was attended by nearly 200 participants, including Gao Yuanyuan, Deputy Director General of the Department of Aid to Foreign Countries of the Ministry of Commerce, Shu Zhan, Ambassador from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, senior agricultural experts from 24 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) and representatives from other relevant organizations.