China and Latin America should make joint efforts to strengthen their agricultural cooperation for mutual benefits
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. Over the past decade, 22 Latin American countries have signed cooperation documents or memorandums of understanding with China under the initiative, and cooperation between the two sides has continued to be enriched and expanded in various fields and projects.
Agriculture is a key field of China-Latin America cooperation in the framework of Belt and Road Initiative. Since the first China-Latin America and Caribbean Agricultural Ministers' Forum held in 2013, the agricultural cooperation between the two sides has entered a new stage of rapid development. So far, China has signed bilateral agricultural cooperation agreements with 18 Latin American countries and established inter-departmental agricultural cooperation mechanisms with 14 countries. China has become the major destination for Latin American agricultural exports, and Latin America has become China's largest source of agricultural imports, achieving mutual benefits and win-win outcomes.
China-Latin America trade in agricultural products has grown significantly, becoming an important driver for the development of their relations in other fields. In 2022, the total trade volume of agricultural products between China and Latin America reached $80 billion, accounting for 16.5 percent of the total trade volume between the two sides. More and more Latin American countries have established increasingly close trade links in agricultural products with China, while the total trade volume of agricultural products between the two sides just surpassed $30 billion a decade ago. Last year, over one-third of Brazil's agricultural products were exported to China. Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru and Ecuador are also important agricultural trade partners of China. In addition to bulk farm-products such as soybeans and beef, more diversified products such as fruits, flowers and seafood are entering the Chinese market at an accelerating pace. This fully reflects the great potential and strong complementarity of China-Latin America agricultural cooperation.
The trade in agricultural products epitomizes the mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Latin America, and jointly addressing the problems and challenges they both face in agricultural modernization will elevate the cooperation to a new height. Issues such as improving the quality and efficiency of agricultural products, preventing and controlling crop diseases and pests, and improving the agricultural ecological environment have always been the key to the high-quality development of agriculture, and agricultural science and technology is undoubtedly a powerful tool to solve these problems. Since the beginning of the new millennium, China and Latin America have promoted pragmatic and in-depth cooperation in the field of agricultural science and technology. In 2011, the China-Brazil Joint Laboratory of Agricultural Sciences was established, which was the first joint research platform for agricultural science and technology cooperation established by China overseas. China has also set up joint research institutes on agricultural science and technology with Argentina, Peru, and other countries. These institutes have created conditions for the two sides to jointly solve problems in the fields of biotechnology, crop breeding and agricultural product processing, and have become models for agricultural cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.
