FAO Director-General meets with national authorities and tours agricultural facilities in northern China

Urumqi/Beijing, China - FAO Director-General QU Dongyu toured several state-of-the-art agricultural facilities in the Changji prefecture during his trip to Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China this week.

His first field trip took him to the Changji Base of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) Western China Agriculture Research Center, a national research institution dedicated to overcoming a broad range of science and technology challenges impacting agricultural development and supporting the modernization of agriculture and rural areas through basic, applied and high-tech research.

Here, a team from the Western China Agricultural Research Center is trialing new cotton varieties to create higher yields. Smart sensors continuously monitor soil and canopy temperatures while autonomous drones monitor the fields, scanning for crop vigor, pest volume, and moisture status.

During the visit, the Director-General encouraged the researchers in the lab and in the field to become a bridge connecting government, farmers and private sectors, as to ensure that their research outcome can be turned into concrete benefits of the people.

Qu then visited the CAAS Western China Agriculture Research Center, where he emphasized the importance of capitalizing on science and technology to turbocharge the agrifood systems transformation, especially in arid and semi-arid regions such as Xinjiang where water scarcity, soil erosion and extreme climate can easily impact the output of agriculture.

The Director-General then paid a visit to the Grand Bazarre of Urumqi City, the world's largest bazaar by scale, combining Islamic architecture, local Uighur culture, shopping, and agriculture produce.

His final engagement on Wednesday saw him meet the Chairman of the Region Erkin Tuniyaz. With the warm welcome of the President, the Director-General reaffirmed FAO's readiness to work with the Region to capitalize on its unique geographic position to turbocharge South-South cooperation for the agrifood systems transformation in Central Asia.

On Thursday, the Director-General traveled to Beijing, where he held a number of high-level meetings, including with the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, ZHANG Zhu, the Chairman of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), CHEN Xiaodong, and the President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), ZOU Jiayi.

QU congratulated Minister Zhang for taking office and encouraged China to scale up its contribution to agrifood systems transformation by working closely with FAO.

With the CIDCA chief, the Director-General heightened the necessity of strengthening institutionalized and project-based cooperation approach, while focusing on the need of the Global South for concrete deliverables.

In his meeting with AIIB, the Director-General invited the Bank to capitalize on FAO’s expertise and extensive network in developing countries to pinpoint their needs for agriculture infrastructure development — a key area in which many countries that are members of both institutions have urgent needs.