2nd Ministerial Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Agriculture held in Kazakhstan

By CnAgri Print

Information Office

Ministry of Agriculture

Dec. 3, 2012

The Second Ministerial Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Agriculture was convened in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan on Nov.30, 2012. Ministers of Agriculture or their representatives of China,Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and the Deputy Secretary-General of SCO participated in the meeting.

MOA Vice Minister Yu Xinrong, head of the Chinese delegation attended and addressed the Meeting. He noted that over recent years, member states of SCO have established a sound relationship of agricultural cooperation. Remarkable progress has been made in various fields like agro-technology, farm machinery, and cross-border animal disease prevention & control and personnel training, etc. Yu spoke highly of those collaboration activities in enhancing grain production capacity and facilitating agricultural trade among member states.

In order to further promote agricultural exchange and cooperation of SCO, Yu put forward a five-point proposal: first, to improve agricultural cooperation mechanism constantly and develop robust collaboration in a pragmatic way; second, to strengthen food security cooperation among member states, set up joint projects, improve grain production conditions and increase comprehensive capacities; third, to advocate agricultural information sharing among member states, including exchanging food and agricultural information, notifying animal & plant epidemics, and sharing disease prevention & control expertise; fourth, to stimulate agricultural S&T exchange and cooperation, and encourage member states to co-organize human resource training courses, scientific research programs and new technique extension campaigns in agriculture and agro-product processing sectors; and fifth, to provide sustained support for the participation of businesses, and propel the exchange and cooperation among member states in farm machinery, agricultural production and trade.

The Meeting was concluded with fruitful results. The delegates signed the Minutes of Meeting of Agricultural Ministers of SCO, and reviewed and approved the 2013-2014 Work Plan of Agricultural Cooperation under the Inter-governmental Agricultural Cooperation Agreements of SCO.