German-Sino Agricultural Center (DCZ) in Beijing

Context

The German-Sino Agricultural Center (DCZ) is a joint initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) of the People’s Republic of China. It was founded in March 2015 to provide a central point of contact, information and coordination for bilateral cooperation between the two countries in the agricultural and food sectors. China and Germany need to further increase political will, innovative capacity, modernity and resource-efficiency within the agricultural industry in order to create prospects for people in rural areas. China is becoming a progressively more important trading partner for the German agricultural and food sectors.

Home to over 1.3 billion people, China is the world’s most populous country. With the purchasing power of its growing middle class on the rise, it faces major challenges when it comes to local food security. The Chinese Government has set three key goals for modernising the country’s agricultural industry: ensure food security, improve food safety, and promote sustainability (thereby minimising environmental impact). Key impetus will be provided in this context by the strategic Sino-German partnership and the activities to develop the joint Agricultural Center.

Objective

DCZ brings together political decision-makers, experts, specialists and managers from the worlds of business and research. Fruitful dialogue involving the sharing of experience and knowledge on numerous issues within the agricultural and food sectors serves to intensify Sino-German cooperation in this field.

Approach

China and Germany set up DCZ with the aim of stepping up and coordinating bilateral cooperation efforts in the agricultural and food sectors. Priority topics are:

• food security
• sustainable, resource-efficient agriculture
• instruments of agricultural promotion, including subsidies
• agricultural modernisation
• animal husbandry
• bioenergy
• organic production
• soil and soil protection.

The focus areas, for example, are the establishment of an agricultural policy dialogue and vocational education and training. Coordinated research work is supported and oriented towards the goals of agricultural policy dialogue. Furthermore the DCZ intends to coordinate its efforts with locally organised, hands-on Sino-German projects.The Center’s activities and offerings include conferences, research exchange programmes, international study tours, working groups, delegations, national workshops, training programmes, brochures and other publications, and fundamental work to establish contacts. DCZ also offers advisory services. The Centrer seeks to work with relevant food and agricultural institutions in both countries.

In June 2015, DCZ ran a workshop in Beijing and Yunnan Province on preventing and controlling the spread of the spotted-wing vinegar fly. Some 40 participants from China and Germany discussed strategies for reducing fruit infestations and harvest losses for fruit and wine growers, and defined areas for future joint research projects on this topic.

In November 2015, DCZ held the first Sino-German Agriculture Week, which saw actors from the worlds of policy-making, academia and business with knowledge of the agricultural sector come together for intensive dialogue. The event, the first of its kind, focused on the topic of ‘Soil science and soil conservation’ and drew over 300 participants.

DCZ is being run jointly by GIZ and the Foreign Economic Cooperation Center (FECC) of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. The research partner is the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). The German Agricultural Society (DLG) is the sub-contractor responsible for coordination with the agricultural and food industries of both countries.