WALLEN SIMWAKA in Beijing
ZAMBIA is among the African countries that has been invited for the first ever China-Africa Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Alliance (CAASTIA) forum scheduled to take place in China this year.
Dr Zhong Li, the Centre for International Agricultural Research (CIAS) Head of International programmes announced yesterday that Zambia was among 50 countries that had been invited to attend the inaugural conference.
Dr Zhong said CAAASTIA was a new organisation that had been established to foster cooperation in agriculture-related research between China and Africa.
Addressing 25 journalists from five African countries who toured the Chinese Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, Dr Zhong said the CAASTIA vision was to enhance modern agricultural technology with the mission of reducing hunger and poverty in Africa.
He explained that the alliance was focusing on delivering innovations, integrating agricultural research and industry resources from China, the world’s second biggest economy and the African continent for mutual benefits.
“The aim is to build cooperation on the value chain technological development of major commodities focusing on common concerns of global food security, biosecurity, green growth, and climate change,” Dr Zhong said.
He said CIAS, which falls under the Chinese Academy for Agriculture Sciences, was a leading research centre, involved in research in various sectors of Agriculture under various institutes across China.
Dr Zhong explained that CIAS was also cooperating and working with international organisations such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
And Dr Zhong said despite the devastating effects of climate change such as drought that hit Zambia leaving more than six million people at the risk of famine as well as floods, with advanced technology and innovation in agriculture, the world would remain food secure.
In the question and answer session, Dr Zhong said that research involving the Genetically Modified Organsims (GMOS) had not yet established how harmful GMOs were to the human body.
“There is both fear and hope in the technology about GMOs. We have both advantages and disadvantages but we still require more research to be conducted to ascertain the extent to which GMOs could be harmful to the human body.
But so far, science has not conclusively ascertained where consuming GMOs could be harmful or not,” he said.
The issue of GMOs remains controversial but it is difficult to ascertain whether it is harmful or not to human beings. More work needs to be done,” Dr Zhong said.
He however said GMOs could be used to improve productivity in some agricultural products pointing that decisions on the use of GMOs were preserve of individual countries.
Dr Zhong said the world needed to aspire to produce food 65 times more than the current production levels to meet the world demand, emphasising that the feat could be achieved with the use of innovation and modern science.
Dr Zhong said China was leading the way in agriculture related research to find solutions and improve nutrition and food security at global level.
