On October 22, Minister Verburg from the ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality will open the Sino-Dutch Agricultural Innovation and Promotion Centre in Beijing together with her Chinese colleague, Minister Sun. The Centre is an initiative of the Wageningen UR and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS). The Centre’s goal is to be a pied-à-terre for Dutch-Chinese research in the area of food and nutrition in the broadest sense. The Centre is located at CAAS. Wageningen UR, which was previously involved in nature and environmental topics, will handle the management of the Centre.
Via this location, Wageningen UR wants to coordinate and expand all their cooperation and contacts with its Chinese partners. The emphasis will be on research in the field of agriculture, rural development, and the environment. Chinese authorities have placed these three topics on their priority agenda. The representation of Wageningen UR since 2006, which was directed at nature and environmental problems through the Environmental Sciences Group, has been revived during the last weeks when Wageningen UR received a position in the Centre. The expectation is that other initiatives from Wageningen UR and within The Netherlands will quickly follow.
The director of the new innovation and promotion centre in China is Ms. Tan Shuhao. Ms. Tan got her PhD. from Wageningen UR in 2005, and will also function as Wageningen UR’s representative.
The seminar Innovating Metropolitan Agriculture will be held during the opening of the Centre on the 22nd and 23rd of October in Beijing. The seminar will be chaired by Professor Martin Kropff, Vice-Chancellor of Wageningen UR and Dr. Zhai Huqu, his CAAS colleague.
The economy of the People’s Republic of China is growing at a fast rate. One of the spearheads of the Chinese government is to close the income gulf between the urban and rural populations. Therefore, the government is stimulating the development of rural areas, with attention for the environment and responsible use of natural resources. These long-term goals are attainable through long-term and large-scale cooperation with top institutes in China and knowledge centres such as Wageningen UR.