A week-long high-level dialogue for exchanging innovative policies and experiences in food system within the framework of “China - FAO South-South Cooperation Programme” was hosted recently in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. It was jointly organized by the Ministry of Agriculture of China (MoA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and coordinated by the International Service Center of the Ministry of Agriculture. Officials and experts from 15 countries as well as FAO representatives hold an in-depth discussion on the key policy issues and challenges for modern food system and the enabling environment for innovation.

South - south Cooperation Programme is aimed to share experiences among developing countries in the world. As a global development and cooperation mechanism, it is regarded as a key feature of development cooperation among countries from the global south. In recent years, Chinese government has continuously increased the investment in the SSC programme.

The FAO Representative in China Vincent Martin recalled the importance of this mechanism to share knowledge and the state of the art techniques. The FAO-China SSC Programme has been entering its second phase and putting emphasis on innovation, regional programms, including policy/strategy dimensions. Building on successes in the last years, he said, the FAO China SSC prohramme is exploring new model of partnerships to address emerging issues and challenges in food systems development (climate change, urbanization, crisis and conflicts).  New opportunities such as the internet area can be leveraged in to better connect markets to smallholder famers to alleviate poverty and food insecurity. This requires an understanding of a complex range of factors at play in food value chains. The participants were expected to explore a series of interesting themes such as nutrition-sensitive food production, climate effects on food systems but also the social dimensions looking at the opportunities along the value chains and the types of innovations we can bring.  Food systems are rooted in traditions and culture but we can also harness the potential of the internet revolution to build more sustainable and inclusive food system.

Food system not only exerts a great influence on the accessibility, affordability, sustainability, diversity, and safety of food, but also on economic growth and structural transformation. At present the global agriculture and food system is undergoing dramatic changes, and following the trend of getting more globalized, centralized, industrialized, knowledge and capital intensive.

Tang Shengyao, the deputy director of the Department of International Affairs of MoA said that through this high- level dialogue, we hope to share China’s policy innovations in food system, as well as good practices and experiences in sustainable development, inclusive development and social welfare. Meanwhile, we also hope that through sharing, coordinating and combining good experiences, expertise and comparative advantages from different parties, we could reach the goals of promoting agricultural development, improving food security and advancing poverty alleviation in developing countries.

In order to share China’s successful experiences in technology, government model and expertise in a more targeted way, the experts in different fields were invited to conduct a comprehensive analysis on the crucial issues identified before. After the keynote speeches and remarks from the guests, the participants had a chance to discuss these topics in-depth and share cases from their own countries. Meanwhile, the organizers also arranged thematic trips to the headquarters of Alibaba and Ant Financial, as well as Food Function Area and Mullberry dike- Fish Pond Complex in Huzhou City.