The UK China Virtual Joint Centre of Nitrogen in Agriculture kicked off in Beijing

The UK and Chinese scientists got together in Beijing from the 24th-27th April for the kick-off meeting for a new joint virtual centre to investigate and tackle the problem of nitrogen use in Chinese agriculture.

Under the leadership of Professors Pete Smith (University of Aberdeen), Hongbin Liu (Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Beijing) and Jiaotang Ju (China Agricultural University, Beijing), the project brings together the expertise of academics from nine leading Chinese institutions alongside UK partners from the Universities of Aberdeen, Cambridge and East Anglia, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), and ADAS.

The kick-off meeting was an opportunity to start engaging with senior officials from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and colleagues from the British Embassy in Beijing. It allowed for UK-based and China-based partners to meet and discuss the overall scope of the project, and to make detailed plans for the joint work to take place over the coming 3 years. The project is split into eight work packages with each covering a different aspect of agricultural Nitrogen use. In addition to work package meetings, two field sites in Beijing, where agricultural experiments are to be carried out, were visited.

The project is funded by around ￡3 million from the Newton Fund via BBSRC and NERC and around ￡4 million from sources in China.

The project is working in partnership with the UK China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation network (SAIN).