The 9th China-EU Joint Steering Committee on S&T (JSCST) was held on the March 22nd 2011 in Brussels, Belgium. It endorsed the proposal of creating a China-EU task force on food, agriculture and biotechnologies, the first of its kind under S&T agreement. The task force is co-chaired by CAAS and the Food, Agriculture and Biotechnologies Directorate of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG Research), with Dr. TANG Hua-jun, Vice President of CAAS as the Chinese chairman. Its member institutions include China Agricultural University, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Chinese Academy of Forestry and Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences and some European institutions. The task force will meet regularly and discuss priority areas of mutual interest for and approaches to future cooperation. It will build on past achievements and strengthen cooperation in agriculture, fishery, food safety and biotechnologies and jointly address climate change, food safety, food security and other global challenges.

On June 20th, 2011, the first working meeting of China-EU Task Force on Food, Agriculture and Biotechnologies Research was held on the campus of CAAS. The meeting was co-chaired by Dr. WANG Ren, Vice President of CAAS and Ms. Maive Rute, Director for Food, Agriculture, and Biotechnologies in DG Research. Participants discussed plant breeding, IPC, food safety and processing, animal health, biotechnologies and the implication of climate change on agriculture production. The two sides decided to carry out China-EU cooperation on agricultural technologies on three levels: project level, programme level and task force level. On project level, both sides will jointly apply for projects under EU Framework Programme and China’s National 973 and 863 Programme. On programme level, both sides will jointly determine priority areas, co-fund and jointly evaluate the candidate projects. The first programme level cooperation project, OPTICHINA, in plant breeding has been launched, with future projects in bast fiber crops and veterinarian network. On task force level, both sides will meet and exchange view regularly. The next working meeting is to take place in September 2012 in Brussels.