CAAS Vice President Wu Kongming, along with other 5 experts from different institutes, paid a scientific visit to Europe from June 8 to 14. The delegation visited Belgian and Germany at the invitation of European Union (EU), Bayer Cropscience and the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT).

The major purpose of this visit to Belgian is to attend the 4th meeting of the EU-China Task Force on Food, Agriculture and Biotechnologies Research and the Joint Steering Committee Meeting of the EU-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement at EU headquarter in Brussels. Some consensuses were reached on research priorities, cooperative approaches and next step action plan.

Crop Science is one of Bayer Group’s major three innovation units and a world leading research-intensive company in agricultural industry. It offers a broad range of innovative chemical and biological products for improving plant health, along with crop seeds. CAAS and Bayer Cropscience have a long-time partnership in agricultural research and development. In Belgian, the delegation visited Bayer Cropscience innovation center in Gent. Both sides agreed to upgrade the existing cooperation in crop seeds and risk evaluation system of GM crops.

The last leg of the delegation’s two-nation trip is to visit headquarter of the GCDT in Bonn. The two sides reached a new MOU on S&T cooperation, marking as a new step in the bilateral cooperation followed by GCDT Director-General, Marie Haga’s visit to CAAS this February.