On June 14, 2019, President Xi Jinping proposed at the 19th SCO Council of Heads of State in Bishkek that “China would like to set up the SCO Demonstration Base for Agricultural Technology Exchange and Training in Shaanxi Province to strengthen cooperation with regional countries in the field of modern agriculture”. The proposal was agreed by the SCO participants. Therefore, on October 21, 2020, the 5th Agricultural Ministers’ Meeting of SCO member states adopted the framework of the SCO Agricultural Base and signed the minutes of the meeting, finally turning it from a unilateral initiative into a collective action. Later, the SCO Demonstration Base for Agricultural Technology Exchange and Training was officially inaugurated in Yangling on October 22, 2020.
At present, the demonstration base is committed to the Shanghai Spirit, which requires mutual trust, mutual advantage, equality, joint consultations, respect for cultural diversity and the desire for joint development. In light of the endowments of agricultural resources of the SCO members, foundations for economic and social development, and agricultural development direction in the future, the demonstration base is led by the government and supported by diverse efforts, it focuses on demands and key points, and it follows openness, common construction and shared growth. According to the core functions of “exchange, training and demonstration”, the construction idea of “one base with multiple platforms, one center with multiple parks, and one institute with multiple departments” has been proposed. Preliminarily, four function areas have been accepted, including “agricultural technology exchanges and cooperation”, “agricultural technology education and training”, “agricultural technology demonstration and promotion”, and “agricultural trade and capacity cooperation”. All the work is going smoothly.
