At the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Beijing Summit in September 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping solemnly announced ten partnership actions that China would take with Africa to advance modernization in the next three years, one of which is the Partnership Action for Agriculture and Livelihoods. In order to implement the outcomes of the summit, the Mission of China to the African Union and the African Union Commission jointly held China-Africa International Symposium on Perennial Rice at the African Union Headquarters on October 16, the World Food Day. This meeting has injected new vitality into the accelerated promotion of perennial rice in Africa, fully reflecting the high attention paid by China and the African Union to food security and agricultural modernization cooperation.
Perennial rice is a rice variety that can be harvested multiple times after being planted once. It avoids the heavy work of tilling and re-seeding every season required for traditional rice planting, greatly saving farmer labor and production costs. Being developed by Chinese agricultural science experts independently, perennial rice technology has the advantages of simplicity, high yield and low carbon. In 2018, it was selected as the “International Agricultural Technology Innovation Technology” of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In 2022, it was named “Top Ten Scientific Breakthroughs of 2022” by Science, the top international academic journal.
In November 2023, the fifth ministerial meeting of the African Union Special Technical Committee on Agriculture included perennial rice in the framework of seed and biotechnology projects (2024-2025). In February 2024, the Resolution of the 37th African Union Summit further included perennial rice, as a strategic innovative technology, into the key technology project plan and promoted it throughout Africa. At present, China’s perennial rice technology has been implemented and promoted in Uganda, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria and Kenya with good results being achieved.
Being committed to implementingthe Plan for China Supporting Africa’s Agricultural Modernization and the Partnership Action for Agriculture and Livelihoods, China is willing to work with all parties to promote advanced and applicable agricultural technologies such as perennial rice in Africa in a market-oriented and commercial way. Mission of China to AU will strengthen cooperation with AU and UN agencies, and closely connect with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) and the Common African Agricultural Parks (CAAPs). By taking the opportunities of promoting the implementation of the China-Africa Cooperation Plan for Assisting the AU in Agricultural Modernization, the sustainable transformation of the food system launched by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Belt and Road special cooperation plan for science and technology poverty alleviation, China will further innovate cooperation methods with Africa to support Africa’s food security and agricultural modernization.
Looking towards the future, China will continue to explore new paths for cooperation with Africa to deepen agricultural cooperation, bring more advanced agricultural technologies and investment to Africa to support Africa’s food security, sustainable agricultural development and poverty reduction. Let China and Africa work together to advance modernization to jointly build an all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era.
Ambassador Hu Changchun is Head of Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the African Union and Representative of the People’s Republic of China to the UNECA
