FiBL intensifies cooperation with China

End of June the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in Switzerland visited the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL in Frick. Ambassador Wenbing Geng and his delegation learnt about FiBL’s domestic and international activities, especially in the People’s Republic of China, and expressed their interest in a collaboration.

Ambassador Wenbing Geng emphasised that agriculture is an economically highly important branch, due to the country’s dependence on agriculture for economic development. Thus, the collaboration with an innovative institute like FiBL is of great importance. He thanked FiBL for its extensive activities in China and particularly mentioned the admission of PhD students to the institute in Frick.

Urs Niggli, Director of FiBL, said that, as a leading institute on sustainability, environment and healthy food, FiBL has a great responsibility to cooperate with other countries. The collaboration with the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology IGDB in Peking and other institutes in the Shanghai region would be a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Ambassador Wenbing Geng and Urs Niggli both agreed that cooperation with Chinese provinces is vital in order for the FiBL results to have an impact on agricultural practice. Dr Lucius Tamm, Head of the Department of Crop Sciences, showed the visitors the laboratories and on-going field trials while Beate Huber, Head of the International Department, provided some insight into international organic markets and strategies for organic farming. At the end of the visit, Dr Qiyan Wang-Müller, responsible for the Swiss-Sino collaboration, presented several on-going projects, e.g. the foundation of a Chinese Technology Innovation Platform.