Chinese province cooperates with SCO member states in agriculture

Shaanxi Province in northwestern China has been collaborating with member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in areas like fruit and wheat cultivation to bolster agricultural trade and economic development.

Featuring non-alliance, non-confrontation and non-targeting of any third party, the SCO was established in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan were admitted as full members in June 2017 and Iran in July 2023.

In Shaanxi's Yangling, an SCO demonstration base for agricultural technology exchange and training was established in 2020. It uses big data, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies to promote modern agriculture development in arid and semi-arid areas.

Wang Yan is a manager of a demonstration base for dragon fruit plantations. She planted dragon fruit in south China's Hainan Province, and in 2008 she returned to her hometown of Yangling to develop the same industry.

As the first individual to plant dragon fruit in Yangling, Wang's first attempts failed to harvest because of the temperature and humidity difference. Without anyone to turn to for expertise, she kept exploring and experimenting and finally succeeded in 2015.

"Experts from SCO member countries like Iran, Pakistan and Uzbekistan are very interested in dragon fruit plantations. They visit our base every month, exchanging ideas about facilities use, greenhouse construction, irrigation systems, plantation skills and variety breeding. We worked with Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry to develop our irrigation system that can save 70 percent of the water compared to other systems," said Wang.

Professor Zhang Zhengmao is a senior wheat plantation expert at Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry, one of the top universities in China. He and his team have been working on hybrid wheat development in Kazakhstan since 2017.

Zhang said that generally, the higher the latitude, the lower the height of wheat. So they've been experimenting with taller Chinese wheat varieties both in Yangling and northwest China's Xinjiang that has a similar climate to Kazakhstan.

"The agronomic traits, yield traits and disease-resistance traits of local Chinese wheat are good, but the Kazakh wheat is better quality. So we are doing experiments in both countries to produce hybrid wheat that has the best traits of both types of wheat," said Zhang.

Kazakhstan has fertile land, but the unit yield was previously low. Since the cooperation of experts from both countries began, yields have increased by as much as 60 percent.

As the first national agricultural high-tech industrial demonstration zone in China, more than 700 agricultural experts from 40 countries including SCO member countries were trained in the zone last year. Local officials said that cooperation between China and Central Asia in agriculture and other industries will continue.

Chinese province cooperates with SCO member states in agriculture

Government officials and representatives of major media organizations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states attended a roundtable meeting on Wednesday in Astana, Kazakhstan, ahead of the 24th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO.

Hosted by the China Media Group (CMG), the meeting was held under the theme of pulling together the media power and carrying forward the Shanghai Spirit. Attendees summarized what China and other SCO members have achieved in media cooperation and sought deeper cooperation for the future.

Shen Haixiong, president of the CMG, said mass media organizations should deepen cooperation and jointly promote exchanges and mutual learning by telling stories of people-to-people ties among SCO members and creating a fair, objective and healthy global public opinion ecology.

Shen said the CMG is willing to make joint efforts with the mass media outlets of SCO member countries to take the Astana roundtable meeting as an opportunity to push the development of the SCO to a new level.

Kanat Iskakov, Kazakh vice minister of culture and information, drew attention to the key role of mass media in strengthening mutual trust, friendship and good neighborliness. He hoped that through this dialogue, mass media organizations of the SCO member states could establish closer cooperative relations.

Andrey Denisov, the first deputy chair of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs, said SCO member states should strengthen exchanges and cooperation in various fields and build a more just, reasonable, diversified and inclusive space for international public opinion in the current international environment.

Other representatives of major mass media organizations from the SCO member states also shared their insights on how best to strengthen exchanges and cooperation.

Bolat Nurgaliyev, a former SCO Secretary-General, said media outlets should strive to create a cultural atmosphere and environment of mutual understanding, mutual respect and mutual appreciation.

According to another former SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov, over 180 events dedicated to various sectors have been held during Kazakhstan's presidency of the SCO, and he suggested that a media union of the SCO countries could be established to strengthen technical cooperation.

At the event, an initiative to deepen pragmatic cooperation between the CMG and SCO mass media outlets was launched. According to the initiative, mass media should deepen cooperation, strengthen mutual training and share best practices.

Founded in Shanghai back in 2001, the SCO is a trans-regional organization comprised of nine full members, three observer countries, and 14 dialogue partners, which covers over 60 percent of the Eurasian landmass and nearly half of the world's population.

SCO members eye deeper cooperation in mass media