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Xinhua News Agency, Sanya, July 30 (Reporter Chen Cong) After several visits to China for academic exchanges, Thomas Gboki, former Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Liberia in charge of regional development, research and extension, decided to go to China in 2018 to continue his studies.
After receiving a joint master’s degree from Nanjing Agricultural University and the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS), he seized the opportunity to pursue a PhD in plant pathology, specializing in coffee disease control.
In Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, Geboji walks quickly between the test site and the laboratory.
“The environment and climate conditions in Sanya and Liberia are almost the same, so I hope to bring what I have learned here to practice in my country,” he said.
China-Africa agricultural cooperation is becoming increasingly close. The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has so far trained 276 international students from African countries, and Nanjing Agricultural University has trained 345 senior agricultural technology and management talents for African countries since 2003.
Felix Dapare Dakhola, former president of the African Academy of Sciences, said that capacity building is the key to achieving sustainable agricultural production in Africa. The Chinese government has provided a lot of support to African countries in capacity building, and more and more Africans are coming to China to study.
In response to African countries’ urgent needs for food production and agricultural development, China has shared its knowledge and technology.
In the fields of Sangeng Village, Yazhou District, Sanya City, Nigerian student Oluwole Gregory Igiti followed his mentor Chen Qing to harvest a new variety of cassava under the scorching sun.
“This new variety can be eaten fresh or processed, and has the characteristics of high yield, insect resistance and strong adaptability,” Chen said.
Cassava is an important staple food crop in Nigeria, which has the largest cassava planting area in the world. Chen Zhijian, a researcher at the Institute of Cassava of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, helped Igiti find a research direction based on the actual needs of cassava production in Nigeria and Igiti’s goal of improving its scientific and technological innovation capabilities.
Tanzanian student Mkapa Dietram Samson came to Sanya with a clear purpose – to learn as much as possible about sisal. Tanzania is famous for its sisal production, but the lack of advanced technology has seriously restricted the development of the country’s sisal industry. Tanzania hopes to conduct cooperative research with China to improve the production level of its sisal industry.
“The mainstream sisal variety H11648 currently grown in China comes from Tanzania. But the technology here is developing very fast, which is amazing,” said Samson, who hopes to learn and introduce China’s sisal breeding technology and seedling tissue culture technology.
In order to expand the experimental area and speed up the research process, Samson’s mentor Yi Kexian planted many sisal plants in the open space around the laboratory of the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Yi Kexian often took his African students around on an electric bike to check the growth of sisal and record data.
At the China-Africa Agricultural Science and Technology Cooperation Seminar under the framework of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s South-South Trilateral Cooperation held in Sanya this year, a number of Chinese agricultural research institutions extended invitations to African agricultural researchers to study in China and conduct joint research.
Sun Tan, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences will build an international education college in Sanya, focusing on recruiting African students to carry out technological innovation in the seed industry. The number of international students will double within five years.
Sun Chunlan said that at the same time, 30 young African agricultural scientists will receive a one-year training at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences’ South China Seed Production and Production Research Institute (Sanya).
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