DEPARTMENT FOR
ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS News Release (News Release ref:
357/08) issued by COI News Distribution Service. 10 November 2008
BEIJING: The UK
and Chinese governments today signed a three year commitment to
strengthen their growing partnership on agriculture.
Hilary Benn, UK Environment Secretary, met the Chinese
Agriculture Minister, Sun Zhengcai and signed the Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation on Sustainable Agriculture.
The Ministers also launched the Sustainable Agriculture
Innovation Network (SAIN) which will help address the link between
agriculture and climate change. This new network will provide a
clear plan for the development and implementation of China-UK
collaboration on environmentally sustainable agriculture.
Launching SAIN, Hilary Benn said:
"We want to work with China to promote sustainable
agriculture. This network will enable us to do this. It will help
us to learn from each other and share expertise so that we are
more resource and carbon efficient and reduce our impact on the environment.
"This will be important not only for China and the UK, but
for the world as a whole as we face the challenge of increasing
food production in an environmentally sustainable way at a time of
growing impacts of climate change."
Chinese Minister of Agriculture Sun Zhengcai said:
"With the accelerated development of the economic
globalisation process, a series of important issues such as food
security, climate change, food safety, environmental pollution,
invasive alien species and biodiversity, have become the common
global issues of concern.
"It is my hope that our two countries will make good use of
this platform of SAIN so that we can follow the sustainable
development concept, create new cooperative models and carry out
cooperation in the areas of food security, environmental
protection, climate change and the use of renewable energy in
order to make our contribution to sustainable development in our
two countries and elsewhere in the world."
SAIN will help deliver the MoU and the Agriculture and Fisheries
Work Programme of the UK-China Sustainable Development Dialogue.
Notes to editors
1. The purpose of the China-UK Sustainable Agriculture
Innovation Network (SAIN) is to provide a coherent framework for
the development and implementation of China-UK collaboration on
environmentally sustainable agriculture. It will support the aims
of the current Sustainable Development Dialogue, with the
intention of forming a flexible and largely self-sustaining
platform for long-term China-UK collaboration in this area. The
central aim is to contribute to the achievement of a resource
efficient, low carbon economy and an environmentally friendly society.
2. SAIN's objectives are to:
i. Support the implementation of the UK-China Sustainable
Development Dialogue and its natural resources management theme by
fostering innovation in three areas: policy development;
institutional mechanisms for collaborative research; and
translating policy and science into practice on the ground;
ii. Stimulate innovative thinking and research on all aspects of
environmentally sustainable agriculture and its relation to the
local, national and global economy;
iii. Communicate information on environmentally sustainable
agriculture issues and opportunities for change, and disseminate
best practices to key audiences (farmers, policy makers,
businesses); and
iv. Contribute to global sustainability through wider sharing of
expertise between developed and emerging economies.
3. SAIN will be overseen by a high level Governing Board (GB),
supported by a Secretariat Office in each country, and by four
Working Groups (WGs). The Secretariat Office in China is located
at the North West Agriculture and Forestry University (NWAFU), and
the UK Secretariat Office is located at the Overseas Development
Group, University of East Anglia. Programme priorities will be
guided by the Governing Board of key Government and academic
stakeholders as well as independent experts. Each Working Group
(WG) will be responsible for leading a specific workstream and
will be co-chaired by UK and Chinese experts.
4. SAIN's initial work will focus on four inter-related themes:
i. Application of research and better communications tools to
improve soil and crop nutrient management and lower non-point
source pollution;
ii. Expanding use of agricultural biomass & livestock manure
for biogas, liquid biofuels and organic fertiliser production;
iii. Addressing the interactions between agriculture and climate
change, including the way agriculture will be impacted by, and
therefore need to adapt to, climate change, and the ways in which
agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas emissions; and
iv. Providing policy advice on how the concept of the circular
economy can be applied to agriculture by exploiting the
opportunities for greater recycling, waste minimisation, and more
efficient use of water and other critical resources, building on
the work of the other three working groups.
5. SAIN's expected benefits include:
- Improved focus on policy innovation and greater relevance of
R&D to SDD objectives and policy formulation;
- Greater emphasis on collaboration for integrated policy development;
- Better linkages and greater synergy between joint projects;
- A more holistic approach to programme development;
- Improved complementarity with activities of other bilateral and
multilateral donors;
- Increased translation of R&D into action on the ground;
- Increased sharing of research and expertise;
- Better implementation of central policies; and
- Enhanced learning (including opportunities to share expertise
between developed and emerging economies.
6. SAIN is supported by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and
the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra),
who will both provide funding for the UK and China SAIN
Secretariat Offices. Initial stakeholders include the NWAFU, China
Agricultural University, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University and
the Research Council UK office in China, and DFID, the FCO, BBSRC,
CABI in the UK. Participation will be widened as the WGs are
appointed and the Work Programme is developed.
7. The Chinese Secretariat at NWAFU is headed by Prof Tong Yanan
(tongyanan@nwsuaf.edu.cn) and the UK Secretariat at the UEA by Dr
Lu Yuelai (y.lu@uea.ac.uk).
8. SAIN will be co-chaired by Vice-Minister Niu Dun, Ministry of
Agriculture, China, and Professor Robert Watson, Chief Scientific
Adviser, Defra, UK. Other members of the Governing Board, and the
co-chairs and members of SAIN's Working Groups, will be
appointed in the next few weeks.
9. Find out more about SAIN at: http://www.sainonline.org (in
Chinese) and http://www.sainonline.org/English.html
(in English)
Public enquiries 08459 335577;
Press notices are available on our website http://www.defra.gov.uk
Defra's aim is sustainable development
To subscribe or unsubscribe to Defra's mailing list go to:
http://nds.coi.gov.uk Once on the NDS website see Sign up
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR
Website
http://www.defra.gov.uk