Joint German-Chinese Demonstration Farm Ganhe: 3rd Field Day and Press Conference successfully held

AFC together with its partner, DLG International, is implementing the project “Joint German-Chinese Demonstration Farm Ganhe” in Inner Mongolia. The project, which is financed under the bilateral cooperation programme by the German Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV) is now running in its fourth year. On the 18th of July, after intensive preparation by our team leader, Horst Bunge and his two local experts on plant production and agricultural machinery, Gao Bo and Jin Weijun, the team could present its achievements from 3 years of field trials to an impressive number of 200 interested visitors not only from the project region, but also from other Chinese regions, Beijing and even Germany. With the assistance from German experts (Prof. Volk, University of Soest and Dr. Bischoff, State Institute for Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture, Saxony-Anhalt),  a variety of field demonstrations had been prepared, amongst others a comparison of diesel consumption under different tire pressures, a soil profile in order to demonstrate soil damage due to wrong tillage practices and some other practical demonstrations that attracted a number of visitors until late afternoon. Following these demonstrations, the German partner companies, Lemken, Class, Rauch and Grimme had the opportunity to demonstrate their machines which were exhibited at the field day site and use the time for sales talks with potential new clients. During the lunch break, the new Ganhe State Farm administration building was inaugurated with a big ceremony and the field day ended with a dinner reception for all participants organized by the state farm within their new premises. Following the field day, a press conference was held in Beijing on the 20th of July. The conference was chaired by Mr. Li Anning, the Deputy Director of the Agriculture Machinery Extension center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Mr. Karl-Martin Lüth, Senior Consultant at DLG. Apart from the German speakers, Prof. He Xiongkui from the China Agricultural University gave an overview of the cooperation with the project and the education and training aspects of this collaboration in the field of plant protection measures. Not only a large number of representatives from the Chinese agricultural newspapers and journals, Chinese scientists and from the agricultural administration attended the press conference but also some agricultural attachés from foreign Embassies like Denmark, Czech Republic and Cyprus. A short film of the Ganhe Demonstration farm, summarising the activities during the last three years was shown before Mr. Bunge presented results and achievements from the project. Some data resulting from the scientific research that accompanies the project could be presented in order to show the advantages of German technology. However, Mr. Bunge highlighted also the importance of the joint elaboration of strategies and ideas to solve the existing problems at the Ganhe state farm (especially in regard to soil improvement) that takes place between the Chinese and German experts and further stressed the importance of training and education in the agricultural sector in China. The following questions and answers session between the visitors and the podium of speakers showed the increasing interest in improved agricultural production that the project can now demonstrate through the implementation of adapted production techniques in combination with high quality German technology and training of project staff. In the following years, the positive results of the demonstration farm in Ganhe are expected  to be multiplied in other regions in the area around Harbin. Further information can be found on the project website www.ganhedemofarm.cn You can also contact AFC Headquarters: Johannes.buschmeier [at] afci.de  or Tesa.weiss [at] afci.de