President Du meets with guests from Europe based foundation FPH
Prof. Du Zhixiong, president of CSFAE and deputy director of Rural Development Institute (RDI) of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, together with prof. Zhang Xiaoshan, research fellow and former director of RDI, and Dr. Tan Xuewen, secretary general of CSFAE and associate research fellow with RDI, met with guests and old friends from the Europe based Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation for Human Progress (FPH), including Mr. Pierre Vuarin, China Program Office of FPH, Prof. Chen Lichuan, director of (French) Culturemedia Association and of the governance in China, and Prof. Jin Siyan, coordinator of FPH’s China programs and director of Confucius Institute in (French) Artois University.
The FPH has had long friendly cooperation with RDI and CSFAE since 2000. They have worked together on an international conference on agricultural urbanization in 2000, a coastal fishery survey in 2005 and an international conference and learning journey on sustainable food supply chain in 2008. A book titled “Sustainable food supply chain: practices in China” was published based on field surveys affiliated with the learning journey.
The main purpose of their visit is to discuss with RDI and CSFAE about the possibility, feasibility and specific contents and plans of cooperation. Pierre introduced the current situation of research in various fields. Prof. Du and Zhang responded positively to the proposals and also introduced related issues in China, and showed the willingness to keep close connection and consultation with FPH on the mentioned proposals, which will be implemented when consensus is reached. One focus of discussion is on the continuation of our past co-work on the Eating City initiative, which has been launched in Europe for quite many years and has accumulated rich experiences in improving sustainability of food system in cities. Based on past cooperation on related activities in China, the RDI and CSFAE are willing to conduct research and survey on Eating City issues in future.
Prof. Du also introduced the book that the CSFAE is now organizing its member to compose on the development trends of world agricultural development in the past twenty years since the establishment of WTO and involvement of agriculture in WTO in 1994. He proposed that if the FPH is interested, both sides could think of co-organizing a special international conference on world agricultural development in early 2014 which would be the twentieth year of establishment of WTO. Pierre expressed his definite interest in this issue and agreed to keep further contact on it.
(CSFAE)