CIRAD signs a cooperation agreement with Yunnan on conservation agriculture

01/12/2011 - Article

CIRAD recently signed a new cooperation agreement with the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The agreement should pave the way for a project to develop and disseminate conservation agriculture in Yunnan.

Agriculture in Yunnan is primarily subsistence farming. In these mountain zones hit by cold and drought for several months every year, slash-and-burn farming, rice and maize monocultures and fallow are common, ancestral farming practices. However, these practices have now reached their limitations: the often acid soils are less fertile, and combined with runoff and erosion, this has led to an almost universal drop in yields.

In the aim of responding to the new challenges surrounding agricultural development and promoting new techniques, the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences contacted CIRAD. A cooperation agreement was signed at the end of October. The aim is to develop and disseminate conservation agriculture, which serves to produce more while protecting natural resources and the environment. CIRAD's Conservation Agriculture and System Engineering Research Unit will be at the heart of the project; providing its expertise in terms of conservation agriculture. The YAAS will be backed up by the CANSEA network, of which it is a founding member, and which is one of CIRAD's three research and training platforms in partnership in Asia.

The YAAS and CIRAD have been working together since 1994, notably thanks to a general cooperation agreement signed in 2004. The agreement was recently extended, with a view to improving food security in Yunnan province, which is seen as one of the country's poorest.

An initial support mission to Yunnan is scheduled for early December 2011, involving researchers from CIRAD and the CANSEA network. in 2012, a research and development project is to be drafted, with the aim of intensifying and diversifying mountain rice growing systems.