From March 6th to 10th, Vice President Wu Pan, Professor He Tengbing from the Institute of New Rural Development and two other GZU faculty members attended the “Management Training Program for Innovative Transformation of China’s Agricultural Ecosystem Project for Sustainable Development” organized in Beijing by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

At the event, Wu Pan reported on the path and model of transformation and development of ecological agriculture in Guizhou Province. He elaborated on the current situation and bottlenecks of agricultural development in Guizhou and shared typical cases of rural revitalization such as the composite ecological agriculture system in Chejiangba, Jiayi and Congjiang, the pepper industry chain in Zunyi, and GZU’s intellectual support for local rural revitalization. He stated that GZU will contribute to the protection and restoration of Guizhou’s agricultural ecosystem, integration of innovation technologies for green agriculture, creation of modern value-enhancement mechanisms for the agricultural industry, and promotion of the sustainable and innovative transformation and upgrading of Guizhou’s agricultural ecosystem.

During the training, the implementation plans of demonstration projects in various provinces were shared and discussed. Dr. Li Keli, a member of GZU’s project team, reported on the plan for the project of “Grain Production Capacity Improvement and Ecological Landscape Construction in Rongjiang and Three Other Counties in Guizhou Province”, to which He Tengbing made important supplements. The participating experts offered constructive suggestions, pointing out that Guizhou should take advantage of its excellent ecological environment and diversity of ethnic minorities, highlight areas for innovation, focus on improving the quality of the “rice + N” crop-livestock system, and include the traditional agricultural cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in the project construction.

The Innovative Transformation of China’s Agricultural Ecosystem Project for Sustainable Development is one of the sub-projects of the global “Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration Impact Program”. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is the international executing agency, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs is the domestic implementing agency. The project aims to promote the innovative transformation of China’s agricultural landscape and agricultural product value chain towards environmental and ecological sustainability, in support of the United Nations’ 2030 sustainable development goals. The project implementation period is from 2021 to 2026. The project focuses on production systems of major crops such as rice, wheat, and maize, and promotes the optimization of agricultural ecosystems and the extension of agricultural product value chains through activities such as agricultural ecosystem landscape management, demonstration and promotion of climate-smart agriculture and sustainable production practice, and evaluation of ecological values of agricultural products. The project also promotes the coordinated development of agricultural biodiversity protection, cultivated land and soil restoration, climate change mitigation, and transformation of grain production methods. The Institute of New Rural Development of GZU provides scientific and technological support for implementing the project in Guizhou.

Editor: Pang Aizhong

Chief Editor: Zhang Yajun

Senior Editor: Yang Nan

Translator: Jia Haibo