JOINT PRESS STATEMENT on EU-China Project on Capacity Building for Young Professional Farmers and Agricultural Professionals

"China and Europe have long and proud farming traditions. Our farms and food industries ensure safe and healthy food for our own citizens and for a growing world population. But our farms face similar challenges: how to increase productivity without burdening the environment, how to achieve our climate change goals, and last but not least how to deal with an ageing farming sector – more than 50% of EU farmers are over 55 years old. It was to tackle this last problem that in April this year we launched the Young Farmers Programme - a joint initiative bringing together young entrepreneurial farmers from Europe and China to exchange best practices and learn from each other. In both Europe and China – and indeed anywhere else in the world – we need to encourage the next generation of young farmers and rural entrepreneurs to create a food and farming sector fit for the 21st century. We are convinced that through this initiative our young farmers will be able to identify the technologies and managerial methods to make farming a profitable and modern business and attract more young people into the profession. Our young farmers can also tell us - the governments and public administrations- which public policies give the right incentives and framework to flourish, be it on access to land or finance, forms of public support or the like; and they can also share their experience in successfully marketing their products, developing a good consumer base, and integrating environmental goals in their farming.

A first group of European Young Farmers was in China these last two weeks to visit innovative farms, cooperatives, universities, technological parks and agri-businesses in Beijing, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. They had the opportunity to meet and exchange with Chinese young farmers about challenges and opportunities of the agriculture of tomorrow. The programme, which comprises exchanges in both ways will run until the end of 2018. The next step will be a Chinese group to be welcomed in Europe early next year.

This Young Farmers initiative, part of a broader cooperation between the EU and China on agriculture and rural development, is just one of the excellent opportunities for EU and China to deepen their cooperation in the agrifood sector. We are also working together on developing our production and trade in organic and other specific quality products - with a major agreement to recognise some of our respective geographical indications poised for completion in a few months.

China is also a major player in Europe' agricultural research and innovation programmes, and we are also working together to remove obstacles to our growing two way trade. And in the WTO, the FAO and the G20 we work closely to tackle the big international challenges facing the agrifood sector, from food security to investment, from climate change to use of big data, from farm to fork safety systems to removing trade distortions. We look forward to agreeing new areas of agricultural cooperation in the years ahead, to benefit our farmers, our food industries, and our consumers."