The longstanding partnership between the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) received a boost today with the launch of a new phase in co-operation. The joint CAAS-IPGRI Centre of Excellence in Agrobiodiversity Research and Development (CEARD) opened in the presence of Dr Huqu Zhai, President of CAAS, and Dr Emile Frison, Director General of IPGRI.

The Centre will be a focal point for research on agricultural biodiversity – with a particular emphasis on neglected crops -- and a training centre for the entire region. It will also host interns and play an important role in promoting cooperation and networking among different actors in the region.

In his remarks at the Centre’s opening seminar on agricultural biodiversity, Dr Frison praised China’s efforts to use diversity to boost food production. Planting mixtures of disease-susceptible and disease-resistant rice varieties enables farmers to do away with fungicides and gives them higher incomes from sales of susceptible, but valuable, traditional varieties. Chinese farmers are now experimenting with mixtures of different species and one of the Centre’s first tasks will be to extend these principles to examine the wider value of genetic diversity in controlling pests and diseases.

In the immediate future, work will concentrate on molecular characterization of buckwheat diversity in China. This will enable farmers and breeders to develop improved varieties of buckwheat, which is an extremely important crop for small farmers, especially on marginal lands and in mountainous regions. The Centre will also organize a training course on the use of molecular markers for characterization.

The Centre has a branch at Yunnan Agricultural University and a training centre for biotechnologies at Huazhong Agricultural University in Hubei. It will work with other Chinese institutions in the future as needed.

“China is one of the important centres of origin of agriculture,” said Dr Frison, “and this centre will help to promote the use and conservation of agricultural biodiversity for food security, poverty reduction and environmental protection.”