Positive Review in the National Farmers Daily on South Holland Mission to China
Last month, a delegation from the Dutch province South-Holland visited China. The mission did not go unnoticed. On Monday, one of China's national newspapers, the Farmers Daily reported on the mission. See here the translation:
On November 18th, the “Feeding and Greening Chinese Megacities Conference” took place in Beijing. The South Holland province and its delegation, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA), and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands co-organized the event. Relevant leaders from both Beijing and South Holland, as well as the Dutch ambassador to China, attended the event and delivered speeches. Other experts from the Beijing Municipal Bureau MARA, the Beijing Capital Agribusiness Group (CAG), Holland Hoogendoorn, the China Agricultural University, Wageningen University, and the Netherlands Innovation Quarter gave lectures.
In addition to the speeches and lectures, the participants could choose to partake in two of the four workshops, themed "City Agricultural Product Supply", "City Green Development", "City Innovation and Development", and "Symbiotic Relationship between Agriculture and Water in Cities". The workshops provided the participants with a platform to discuss cooperation between business, experts, and entrepreneurs.
For years already, Beijing and South Holland showed to have complementary advantages in various agriculture sectors, including husbandry, plant production, and trade. In recent years the Beijing Agriculture department has been persistently adhering to innovation, saving water and greening the city. Following that orientation, Beijing is paying significant attention to developing modern urban agriculture and seed industry, enhancing smart agriculture, increasing intelligent agricultural equipment, improving the biotechnology, and of course, increasing food nutrition, health, and food safety. With its highly developed agricultural practices, especially in the field of horticulture, water conservancy, and green development, the province of South Holland could play an important role in achieving these goals.
The cooperation between Beijing and the province of South Holland serves as an important bridge of the Sino-Dutch relations. The future of urban supply and green development contains unlimited cooperation possibilities. The “Feeding and Greening Chinese Megacities Conference” will most likely further promote mutual understanding between Beijing and South Holland in terms of facility agriculture, agricultural product circulation, safe urban supply, and rural and sustainable agricultural development.
In addition to governmental and business relations, education and research initiatives such as the "Beijing- WUR Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Center", are also of great significance in promoting market-oriented cooperation between agricultural enterprises in Beijing and South Holland.
Click here for the official article in the Farmers Daily in Chinese.