China UK Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN) Working Group (WG4) Meeting - “International Conference on China-UK Circular Agriculture”
Conference Summary
September 13, 2010

      The conference on China-UK circular agriculture was successfully held in Hubei Building, Beijing, China on August 30, 2010 – September 2, 2010. This conference was organized by the Department for International Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture and the Agro-Environmental Protection Institute, Ministry of Agriculture with the aim to promote China-UK exchanges and cooperation in the field of sustainable agriculture. More than 40 representatives and experts from the UK and China attended the conference, representing government departments, universities, research institutions, and farmer organizations. By learning from the advanced agricultural technical models, management experience and policy measures of the UK, participants thoroughly discussed the present situation of circular agriculture in China and systematically discussed the need, direction and key areas of circular agriculture. Additional details about the conference follow:
      The conference was co-chaired by the SAIN WG4 co-chair, Shangbin Gao (director of AEPI) and British SAIN WG4 co-chair, Peter Hazell (professor at Imperial College London). Guifeng Sun, investigator with the International Cooperation Squad, MOA, Xifeng Gong, deputy director, International Cooperation Bureau, CAAS, and John Warburton, senior advisor, UK Department for International Development Office in China,also attended and addressed the conference. Professor Yanan Tong, China office of SAIN Secretariat at Northwest A&F University, Dr. Yuelai Lu, UK office of SAIN Secretariat at the University of East Anglia, UK., and Su Zhang, DEFRA/DFID UK-China Sustainable Development Dialogue,also attended the conference. Other Chinese participants included Prof. Wenliang Wu, Prof. Yuhui Qiao and Prof. Huanfen Li of China agricultural university, Prof. Xiaohong Tian of Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry, Vice Director Shirong Tang and Prof. Dianlin Yang of AEPI. Other UK participants included Dr. Hadrian Cook, Harnham Water Meadows Trust, Alex Inman, SOAS, and Martin Haworth, Director of Policy at the UK National Farmers’ Union.
      Delegates recognized the progress made by the SAIN WG4 team. Membership of the UK and China teams was finalized a year ago, and since then the teams have jointly prepared two project proposals titled: “Development and testing of analytical approaches for guiding policy decisions for achieving a circular agriculture” and “Developing solutions for control of rural non-point source water pollution”. These proposals have been peer reviewed and approved by SAIN’s Governing Board, and their relevance was confirmed to conference participants during the post-conference field trips (see below).
      At the meeting, director Shangbin Gao introduced the progress, problems and further work of WG4; Prof. Peter presented his views of the economic and policy aspects of circular agriculture; Prof. Wenliang Wu and Prof. Dianlin Yang reported to the conference on the drafting, revising and implementation of two project proposals about rural non-point pollution control and circular agricultural policy respectively. Prof. Shiming Luo, Martin Haworth, Dr. Hadrian Cook, Alex Inman, Prof. Wenliang Wu and other British and Chinese experts presented academic reports on the technical, policy and planning challenges of controlling non-point pollution at farm and river catchment scales.
      Given likely delays in the funding of the two WG4 proposals by the China and UK governments, participants discussed possible ways in which work could begin on an interim basis. Initial suggestions included research on the “ecological risk assessment and management of GMOs”, “efficient use of biogas fertilizer”, and “assessment of farmland ecosystem service and ecological compensation”.
      The conference was followed by a field trip to Baodi district in Tianjin, and Huantai county in Shandong province, where conference participants saw a variety of examples of circular agriculture and visited an agro-ecological research station working on sustainable farming practices for intensive crop farms in South China. UK participants were impressed by the severity of non-point pollution problems in many of the areas visited, and the need to improve the management of nitrate and phosphate flows at farm, landscape and river catchment levels. Based on the research they saw and drawing on UK experience, participants discussed the scope for improving the situation. It was thought that a shift to circular agriculture involving less use of chemical fertilizer and more recycling of crop, animal and human waste, would help solve the problem. But it would also be necessary to adopt ‘bioregional’ land use planning at a river catchment scale to deliver multiple ecosystem products and services; including food production, soil, air and water resources protection, flood mitigation and biodiversity enhancement.? Within this planning framework, areas of land may be identified for intensive agricultural production facilitated by circular agriculture techniques to increase yields; whilst other areas are selected for less intensive agriculture where the protection of water resources and the provision of other ecosystem services are the priority.? Less intensive areas in effect buffer or mitigate the impacts from the intensive areas, for example, by absorbing excessive nutrient run-off from areas characterized by intensive rice or corn production.? Less intensive areas can be linked to form a network of biodiversity rich zones capable of supporting multiple habitat and species types.
      Participants discussed how appropriate use of circular agriculture and bioregional planning methods might be used to contain nonpoint pollution and provide a richer array of ecosystem services without any loss in food production. It was thought that developing and testing this approach and analyzing the kinds of policy changes that would be needed to incentivate farmers was a relevant and timely objective for future collaborative work between the China and UK teams of SAIN WG4. Such cooperation would enable China to benefit from the UK’s long experience in managing environmental problems in its own intensive farming systems. It would also help the UK to better understand Chinese agricultural and environmental policies, and provide useful lessons for other developing countries with similar problems, including much of developing Asia and a number of African countries that are now successfully undergoing agricultural intensification.
      After returning from the field trip, a final meeting of the China and UK WG4 teams agreed that an interim proposal would be prepared on the issues seen and discussed during the field trip, which if funded would enable work to begin on circular agriculture and nonpoint pollution control within intensive farming systems. The UK team agreed to draft a concept note for this interim work. It was also agreed that the China team would visit the UK in early 2011 to see firsthand how nitrates and phosphates are managed on British farms and river catchments, and to participate in a workshop on these issues with British experts.