Africa Watch丨World Food Day: China-Africa agricultural cooperation is more than just food aid

　　The new crown pneumonia epidemic continues to spread in Africa. Coupled with floods and locust plagues, many countries in Africa are facing food shortages.

October 16th is World Food Day. This issue of Africa Watch focuses on how China joins hands with Africa to carry out agricultural cooperation and help local areas solve food shortages.

　　History of Sino-African Agricultural Cooperation

　　Regarding China-Africa agricultural cooperation, many people still have the impression that China directly aids food, but it is not.

　　Professor Tang Lixia of the School of International Development and Global Agriculture of China Agricultural University said that China's agricultural cooperation with Africa began in the 1950s.

After the Bandung Conference in 1955, China and African countries began to establish diplomatic relations and provided a large amount of free aid to Africa.

In 1959, China's provision of food aid to the Guinea government marked the beginning of China-Africa agricultural cooperation.

As of the end of 2019, in terms of agricultural assistance, China has assisted in the construction of 20 agricultural technology demonstration centers in 19 African countries, focused on displaying China’s advanced agricultural technology, building multilateral and bilateral technology cooperation platforms, and exploring market-oriented commercial sustainable operation models Since 2006, China has dispatched 71 foreign aid expert groups including agricultural technology, vocational education, and senior consultants to 37 African countries, with a total of 724 people, imparting agricultural management experience and guiding local farmers to improve comprehensive agricultural production capacity.

China trains nearly 10,000 agricultural officials, technicians, farmers, and students for African countries every year.

　　In recent years, China has begun to go to Africa to hold agricultural technology training courses. For example, overseas agricultural training courses have been held in Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Zambia, Nigeria and other countries, which has encouraged more agricultural practitioners in African countries to obtain technical training and Guidance to enhance the effectiveness of agricultural foreign aid training.

　　China helps African countries increase agricultural production through mechanization

　　Many African countries have fertile soils and are very suitable for large-scale agricultural development.

However, due to backward agricultural technology, food still cannot be self-sufficient.

Over the years, Chinese companies have made due efforts to solve Mozambique’s food security and improve the living standards of the local people by "teaching people to fish".

　　Thanks to the support of Chinese companies in technology and mechanical services, the grain yield of farmers in the Wanbao Agricultural Project in Mozambique has increased from 2 to 2.5 tons per hectare before training to 6 to 7.5 tons.

During the three years of operation and management with capital, China Railway 20th Bureau has promoted farmers' production through cooperative planting, guided and trained 1,500 local families in Mozambique to grow rice, directly and indirectly benefiting more than 10,000 people.

In order to increase the output of rice planting, the company has introduced China's advanced rice planting technology and resources into the local area, using various modes such as dry direct seeding, direct water direct seeding, artificial transplanting and mechanical transplanting.

In 2019, a total of 13,500 tons of rice was supplied to the local area and more than 1,000 jobs were provided for the local area.

　　Uganda: Large-scale rice cultivation

　　Uganda in East Africa is called the "Pearl of East Africa", but its agricultural foundation is also weak.

The local overseas Chinese Zhong Shuangquan led a team to reclaim wasteland and plant rice on a large scale in Uganda, and made contributions to ensuring Uganda's food security. The locals kindly called him "Mr. Rice".

Chinese experts led the locals to plant rice, turning wasteland into 10,000 mu of fertile land, building a grain industry chain, and improving the value chain.

Zhong Shuangquan introduced that the industrialized production method was used in the park to realize the agricultural assembly line production model of "annual planting, annual harvesting, and annual sales".

　　Agricultural cooperation under the mechanism of China-Africa Cooperation Forum

　　Professor Tang Lixia of the School of International Development and Global Agriculture of China Agricultural University said that agriculture is a priority area for China-Africa cooperation.

With the continuous improvement of the mechanism of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum, the level of institutionalization and standardization of agricultural cooperation between the two sides has gradually improved.

Since the first forum in 2000, the two sides’ agricultural cooperation has always taken poverty alleviation and food security as the basic starting point. The action plans established by the previous forums have made agriculture an important content, which shows that the two sides attach importance to agricultural cooperation and clarify the importance of agricultural cooperation. The principle of priority.

　　At present, the two sides use the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation as a platform to establish the direction of cooperation and carry out a series of follow-up agricultural cooperation models.

The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation provides a high-level platform for agricultural cooperation between China and Africa. On this basis, South-South cooperation under the framework of the “Special Food Security Program” of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the “10+10” cooperation of China-Africa agricultural scientific research institutions Mechanisms have all set up a communication platform for China-Africa agricultural cooperation, promoted the parallel transfer of China's simple and practical agricultural production technology to Africa, and promoted the African poor population with small farmers as the main body to improve the level of agricultural production. Agricultural technology exchanges and cooperation provide a platform.

In addition, a series of dialogue mechanisms formed under the framework of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum also provide support for agricultural cooperation. The construction of platforms such as the China-Africa Agricultural Cooperation Forum has made the agricultural cooperation communication mechanism continuously sound. The two sides established a dialogue mechanism through various channels to ensure The agricultural cooperation plan established at the macro level can be better put into practice, summarize and share agricultural cooperation experience, and improve the quality of cooperation and sustainable development capabilities.

The field of Sino-African agricultural cooperation also tends to get rid of the initial form of purely aid-oriented, presenting a situation of mutual coordination of aid, investment and trade.

As the mechanism of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum continues to deepen and mature, the future of China-Africa agricultural cooperation is full of hope.

(Headquarters reporter Ma Peimin)