CAAS high level delegation led by its Vice President Dr. Wang Hanzhong paid visits to five agricultural research institutions in Australia and New Zealand from November 8 to 15, 2015. This weeklong trip builds and furthers the strategic partnership with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research (PFR), CAAS’s counterpart institutions in Australia and New Zealand.

Dr. Wang Han Zhong and Dr. John Manners, Director of CSIRO Agriculture had an in-depth conversation about exploring the converging points between CAAS’s Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (ASTIP) and CSIRO’s Agriculture Flagship, which have gained more weight among all flagship programs in a recent structural reform of CSIRO. The two sides enter into a strategic agreement emphasizing collaboration in crop improvement, sustainable agricultural farming system, agricultural development and climate change, digital agriculture and animal science.

In Australia, the Delegation was also well received by the University of Sydney and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), two time-honored partners of CAAS in agricultural science cooperation in the country.

As a follow up step to the Agreement on International Strategic Partnership for Research on Economic Crops signed by CAAS and PFR earlier this year, the Delegation had a meeting with PFR CEO Peter Landon-Lane and updated by PFR scientists on research progress in genomics, plant architecture, postharvest and food safety, etc. Both sides agree to expand cooperation to wider areas based on the successful co-effort on the China-New Zealand Joint Lab on Pomology Science led by Zhengzhou Institution of Pomology of CAAS.

This visit also witnessed a new partnership with the New Zealand Forest Research Institute (Scion) through the signing of MOU on Establishing the Joint Laboratory for Soil Molecular Ecology by Dr. Wang Hanzhong and Dr. Warren Parker, CEO of Scion.