Africa -Britain -China (ABC) Cooperation，Strengthen the capacity construction in Africa

To promote the cooperation among Africa -Britain -China (ABC), under the support from the Department for International Development (DFID) of United Kingdom, four Chinese agricultural experts delegation arrived in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso in July 18, 2010, to participate in the 5th African Agriculture Science Week & FARA General Assembly , held during from 19th July to 23th July,2010 in Ouagadougou, International Conference Center. Subsequently, the Panel was invited to visit the Forum of Agricultural Researches for Africa-FARA, which is located in the headquarters of Accra, the capital of Ghana and they had one-to-one discussions with nineteen middle or senior executives including Dr. Monty Jones and exchanged ideas with them. The members of Chinese delegation are Qiu Dewen, the researcher of Chinese Plant Protection in Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Sun Guifeng, from Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture in China, Professor Tong Yan'an, from Northwest A & F University, Coordinator of Secretariat China office, China-UK Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network, Professor Dong Renjie, the Director of the Department of International Cooperation in China Agricultural University.

The theme of Agricultural Science Week is “Agricultural Innovation of Africa in the Changing World”, centering on three sub-topics as follows: 1) investment of agricultural innovation in post-economic crisis era; 2) construction of Knowledge Center and Knowledge Network dealing with globalization and worldwide climate change; 3)future agricultural trade facing the domestic and international market.

There are more than 700 scholars from Africa and around the world, farmer representatives, policy makers, public and private sector representatives and ministers, all of whom aims at promoting food production of Africa to progress from the "laggard" to the "leaping lion", attend the meeting held in Ouagadougou.

After two-day discussion, FARA proposed cooperative mechanism for the ABC in the prior areas of agricultural research and development as follows:

(1) Cooperate with China in Agricultural Technology Promotion Center in Africa
Fourteen established agricultural technology promotion centers be included as an integral part of the FOCAC to transform the technical services for individual countries into the services of neighboring countries. Also, special regional training centers be set up for the training of food processing and business of agricultural characteristics

(2) Set up platform for information sharing, cooperation and talent exchange
Build the ABC Agriculture and Rural Development Policy Research Joint Network and create " agricultural policy of ABC."
Establish experts exchange mechanism in policy research and strengthen the power of agriculture research in African universities through the exchange of university teachers of Africa, China and UK. Construct the agricultural research laboratory network associating China with UK and Africa to promote the exchange of knowledge and laboratory skills training.

(3) Technology Transformation
Transfer technology to Africa to help improving the agricultural mechnical technology and agricultural production in Africa as a whole and reclaim land for agricultural use.

(4) Cooperation in prior areas
The assessment of construction need for African agricultural research; Dry land farming (water conservation, rainwater collection, efficient use of fertilizer, soil management, etc.); pest and disease control (post-harvest losses, pest control and its impact on product sales, ecological security, food quality); post-harvest processing and product development (food processing); ecological diversity preservation; transgenic and ecological safety; bio-energy; hybrid breeding of Chinese high yielding varieties with Africa local varieties.

(5)Training
Training on Agriculture and rural development policies and techniques in prior cooperative areas.

(6) Climate change
Make policies coping with climate change and the mitigation of climate change; climate change models and climate projection; knowledge dissemination.

(7) NARS hopes to provide them with infrastructures to enhance their network capacity.