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Promote international cooperation to maintain food security_News Center_China Net

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Promoting International Cooperation to Maintain Food Security (A Shared Future Global Development Initiative)

Food security concerns the sustainable development and future of mankind, and is an important foundation for building a community with a shared future for mankind. China has always been committed to promoting international cooperation in the field of food, working with other countries to enhance sustainable agricultural production capacity, enhance the resilience of food systems, ensure smooth food supply chains, and jointly safeguard global food security.

“The long-awaited scene has finally come true”

Our reporter Yan Yunming

Walking into the town of Zavi, Amhara, Ethiopia, a modern sugar factory rumbled, and tons of refined sugar poured down from the honey separator like a waterfall. This is the Beres No. 1 Sugar Factory Project, which was once called “a real livelihood project” by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy. ”), which was put into operation in May last year.

Fira, the technical manager, is inspecting the factory. He is an employee of the project owner, the Ethiopian Sugar Company, and has been working in Zawi for seven years. Looking at the advanced production lines, modern equipment and skilled workers in front of her, Fira sighed with emotion, “After the arrival of Chinese companies, everything has gotten better and better!”

Since 2012, the Ethiopian Sugar Company has commissioned a contractor to build a sugar factory, and has also expropriated a large amount of land from farmers for sugar cane cultivation. However, after several years of construction, the project has progressed slowly. “The sugar factory couldn’t start construction. More than 10,000 hectares of sugar cane could only be rotted in the ground or burned. The economic losses caused could not be counted. The whole town was also depressed.” Fira still has a deep memory of the scene at that time.

The turnaround came in April 2019. Entrusted by the Ethiopian Sugar Company, CAMCE started to build the sugar factory project. In just two years, CAMCE has overcame the remaining complex engineering problems, withstood the severe challenges brought by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and finally successfully put the sugar factory into operation. Recalling the day of the candy, Fira was still very excited, “The villagers nearby came to watch in groups, and the scene that I had been waiting for for so many years finally came true!”

Villager Niggs was on the scene that day. The Niggs family of three once lived by growing some teff, sesame and corn. When the harvest was good, they could earn 10,000 birr a year (1 yuan is about 7.68 birr), and when the harvest was low, it was only 5,000 birr. Later, his fields were expropriated by the sugar factory project, and the family had no other income except for the compensation for the land expropriation. After CAMCE took over the sugar factory project, it recruited many local villagers, and Niggs also applied to work in the factory, and now he has an income of more than 5,300 birr per month. I can afford to go to school.” Up to now, the sugar factory has brought nearly 5,000 jobs to the local area, and this number is expected to continue to increase.

“From drinking tea and coffee to making bread and baking biscuits, Ethiopians cannot live without sugar. Chinese companies have helped to build sugar factories, which has greatly ensured our demand for sugar,” Fira said. Previously, Ethiopia’s annual sugar production was only 300,000 tons, which could not meet the country’s annual demand of 600,000 tons. After the Berez No. 1 sugar factory project is put into operation, it can produce 1,200 tons of refined sugar per day under full production, which greatly improves Ethiopia’s sugar production capacity. At the same time, the project is also equipped with generator sets, which can transmit power to the outside world while ensuring the production capacity, so as to relieve the power supply pressure in the local dry season.

Yihune, general manager of the Ethiopian Sugar Company, said that the smooth operation of the Berez No. 1 sugar factory project helped the country save the foreign exchange needed to import sugar, and these funds were used to import edible oil, wheat and other urgently needed grains Crops and products, the project creates favorable conditions for the sustainable development of the entire country.

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Now that the construction period of the project has basically ended, Ethiopian Sugar Company invited CAMCE to continue to assist the operation of the sugar factory, using the bagasse and waste honey produced as feed to drive the development of local animal husbandry. “There are more and more small traders and hawkers, the town is getting more and more lively, and everyone is full of energy. I met my wife in the factory and I have a lovely child.” Looking at Zavi today In the town, Fira was deeply touched. The industrial development driven by the Belles No. 1 sugar factory project is injecting unprecedented vitality into the town, and it also makes the local people full of expectations for the future life.

“Our lives are getting better”

Our reporter Zhang Jie Qupei

Sambas District, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The weather was scorching hot, and in a green rice field, Muzzani was hunched over to check the growth of the rice seedlings. Now is the critical period for weeding and pest control, he carefully records and communicates technical details with agronomists. “The harvest is expected to be good this year!” Muzzani smiled.

West Kalimantan is one of Indonesia’s major crop-producing regions. All along, due to the low level of local agricultural production technology, farmers’ income is very limited. When he was young, Muzzani and his wife left their hometowns and went to work in Malaysia to make a living. In 1999, they returned to their hometown and started to grow rice. At that time, the annual output of rice per hectare was only about 1.8 tons, and the income was very meager. “The quality of the seeds is not high, and we don’t have any knowledge of planting. We have not received training and guidance. We think that rice is just planted and then harvested, and it will be harvested once a year.” Muzzani recalled that until 2014, he began to work with Chinese With the cooperation of the agronomist team of Syngenta Group, a subsidiary of Chemical Holding Co., Ltd., everything improved.

Through receiving technical guidance, Muzzani’s rice has become three crops a year, and the yield has also been greatly improved. Syngenta Group also helped him open up sales through the e-commerce team. “The price has gone up, the income has increased, and our life has gotten better and better.” Muzzani came up with the idea of ​​benefiting more farmers. He organized more than 40 farmers in Sambas County to form a mutual aid group, and the local government and enterprises provided agricultural technical training and financial service support for these farmers. “Many farmers now grow rice with an annual yield of about 7 to 8 tons per hectare, and some have even been able to maintain it at around 9 tons.”

As an agricultural technology enterprise, Syngenta Group is committed to empowering farmers through technological innovation in the process of cultivating the Indonesian market. According to Puba, the head of the group’s Indonesian business area, the group has a fixed team of agronomists in major islands such as Java, Bali, Sulawesi and Sumatra. The team members are all locals. After receiving training, they regularly provide farmers with professional and technical guidance free of charge, including seed selection, irrigation, and fertilization. In addition, Syngenta Group also promotes high-quality seed varieties locally, provides plant protection programs, and provides agricultural insurance for farmers. For example, the breeding team has cultivated excellent hybrid corn seeds based on the local soil and climate conditions in Indonesia, effectively helping farmers to solve the problem of pests and diseases.

The activities of Chinese enterprises to promote agricultural development in Indonesia and help farmers increase their income have also received the attention and support of the Indonesian government. The Ministry of Economic Affairs Coordination of Indonesia specially invited Syngenta Group to participate in its “Closed-Loop Agriculture Program” to provide farmers with full-process services from planting training, fertilization guidance to sales promotion. During the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the group continued to guide farmers’ production in the cloud, and held more than 9,000 online teaching and training activities.

The cooperation between Syngenta Group and local farmers is a vivid epitome of the deepening cooperation between China and Indonesia in the field of agriculture. Indonesia has fertile land and a suitable climate for the development of agricultural production. Over the years, the two countries have actively interacted in various fields such as hybrid rice cultivation, economic crop development, and agricultural technology exchanges. Chinese agricultural enterprises enter the Indonesian market and cooperate with the local government, agricultural enterprises, and individual farmers to establish agricultural cooperation zones, seed development bases, and popularize modern technologies, so as to jointly promote Indonesian agricultural development and maintain food security.

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The positive contribution of Chinese enterprises has attracted the attention of the Indonesian media. The Jakarta Post published an article praising Syngenta Group for adhering to the vision of promoting the development of Indonesia’s agriculture, and carrying out various cooperation with the local government and enterprises to help achieve the goal of agricultural production.

“Our banana farming ‘sprouted’ from here”

Our reporter Zhao Yipu

At 7:00 in the morning, the Royal Agricultural University of Cambodia, located in the southwestern suburbs of the capital Phnom Penh, was still in silence. Ding Chunfang had already set out from the dormitory under the light morning mist. For the past five years, she has been in front of the students every day and walked into the banana tissue culture center in the Agricultural College building early. “The students will arrive at 7:30. I have to do some preparatory work in advance. When the students arrive, I must pay attention to their operations, check the preparation of nutrient solution, the method of tissue culture seedling inoculation, and the temperature and humidity during the cultivation stage. , lighting control and other details are standardized.”

Ding Chunfang is the technical director of the Banana Tissue Culture Center of the Royal Agricultural University of Cambodia. Cambodia’s fertile land, abundant sunshine and rainfall, is suitable for the development of banana planting industry. Tissue culture seedlings are the key to growing bananas. Due to various reasons, there are not many local banana tissue culture seedling centers in Cambodia, and banana planting companies lack the technology and ability to cultivate tissue culture seedlings. In 2017, the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, the Hainan Provincial Department of Agriculture and the Royal Agricultural University of Cambodia signed a tripartite agreement. Ding Chunfang, a “banana expert”, has been engaged in the selection and breeding of crop varieties in Hainan. Since then, he has been working in Cambodia as a Chinese expert.

In October 2018, the Royal Agricultural University of Cambodia Banana Tissue Cultivation Center was officially put into operation. It has now become a “seed industry base” and a “large seedling supplier” for the local banana industry. Banana growing companies have supplied more than 1 million tissue culture seedlings. “Every time I take the students to visit the company, they are very proud. Most of the banana trees planted there are from the laboratory of our center, and from the hands of these students.” Ding Chunfang said that the center not only undertakes the work of breeding and supplying seedlings, but also It is also a training base for Cambodian agriculture, especially banana planting.

Since its operation, under the leadership of the Hainan Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Hainan Provincial Agricultural Foreign Exchange and Cooperation Center, the center has held five sessions of China (Hainan)-Cambodia Tropical Agricultural Technology Training Course Banana Standardized Production Technology Training Course. Cambodian students who participated in the training Over 300. Today, most of them have grown into professional technical personnel serving all over Cambodia. The center has also held several theoretical and practical trainings on tissue culture and propagation techniques. More than 100 students have received the training, of which 18 remain in the center as technicians.

Cambodian girl Jin Hui has worked in the tissue culture center for nearly two years. She majored in agriculture and taught herself fluent Chinese. “Cambodia’s banana planting industry started very late, and the technology and experience are relatively lacking. The quality of tissue culture seedlings directly determines the growth and seed setting rate of banana trees. I am very grateful to Chinese experts for bringing us advanced equipment and concepts.”

Ji Hong, Dean of the Agricultural College of the Royal Agricultural University of Cambodia, said that Cambodia-China agricultural cooperation has really brought benefits to Cambodian agricultural practitioners. In his view, the tissue culture center is a gift from China to the school, and it is also the foundation for the development of Cambodia’s banana planting industry. “Without the tissue culture seedling center, it would be difficult to have the Cambodian banana industry, which is in the ascendant today. Our banana planting industry ‘sprouted’ from here,” Jihong said.

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“You don’t have to worry about the sales of soybeans anymore”

Our reporter Zou Songqupei

In the Mpumalanga province of eastern South Africa, green farmland spreads into the distance on the open land. The suitable subtropical climate makes it an important agricultural production area in the country, and the main cash crops are corn, sorghum and sunflower seeds. It is also here that COFCO International Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “COFCO International”), the overseas platform of COFCO Corporation, has joined hands with South African farms, and a new model of production and marketing cooperation is in full swing.

Private farmer Prari’s farm is mainly maize. In 2014, he signed a contract with COFCO International to become its agricultural product supplier. During the production stage, COFCO International provided Prari with dynamic information on corn market prices and climate change warnings, and the two parties jointly formulated a quarterly production plan; in the harvest season, the corn was stored in silo bags provided by COFCO International South Africa after the harvest was completed. They are then transported into mechanized silos. These silos have the functions of heat preservation, drying and insecticide, which can greatly reduce the loss during storage. In the sales stage, the company will help the farm to choose according to the price changes in the global market. The best time to sell, and also provide compensation to the farm during certain special periods.

This innovative cooperation started in 2009, with COFCO International and local farms in South Africa working closely in all aspects of the entire process, including planting, procurement, processing, trade, and logistics. At present, this model has been extended to 43 farms in South Africa, with a total area of ​​more than 70,000 hectares of contracted farms.

John Stein, Managing Director of COFCO International Sub-Saharan Africa, said that through cooperation, farmers share their experience in localized operations and crop cultivation, while COFCO International makes full use of the advantages of large-scale operations to provide farmers with more Cheap seeds, fertilizers and other production materials, thereby increasing farmers’ income. “The cooperation between the two parties is mutually beneficial and win-win, which reduces production and operation costs, improves production efficiency, and allows farmers to produce with confidence.”

In Mogansong Township, Mpumalanga Province, the farm where farmer Stelt works was one of the first to sign contracts with COFCO International. As the cooperation between the two parties continued to deepen, Stelt witnessed the development and changes of the town. He recalled that before, soybeans grown on farms could only sell themselves, with unstable prices and high storage costs. After cooperating with Chinese companies, “the soybeans produced on the farm are directly sent to the crushing plants affiliated to the Chinese companies for processing. There is no need to worry about the sales of soybeans, and everyone’s income will be higher!”

In addition to carrying out agricultural business cooperation, in 2021, COFCO International’s South African farms will provide more than 320,000 tons of grain to the local market, and the crushing plant will provide nearly 340,000 tons of soybean oil and soybean meal and other products. The Standerton-based crushing plant is also the largest grain and oil crushing facility in South Africa, supporting nearly 300 local jobs.

In recent years, South Africa has been frequently affected by abnormal weather, with continuous floods, droughts and locust plagues, and agricultural production and sales are often affected. Guaranteeing food security, improving crop yields, and making farmers no longer “see the sky to eat” are the problems that governments at all levels in South Africa are striving to solve. Chinese enterprises have in-depth cooperation with local farms and enterprises to increase agricultural production and farmers’ income, provide local people with more affordable food, improve people’s livelihood and well-being, and have been recognized by the local government and people.

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