Cameron Leckie

October 20, 2024

What an incredible week!

I had the great privilege to visit the People’s Republic of China to participate in the 2024 Climate Future & Smart Agriculture Forum (Lanzhou) and linked Emerging Researchers Study Tour (Lanzhou (Gansu Province) and Yangling (Shaanxi Province)) along with four other PhD candidates from the University of Southern Queensland .

It is difficult to adequately summarise this trip, my first to China.

Was it the amazing landscape of the famed loess plateau and the Yellow River.

The soils in the loess plateau are extremely deep – 100s of metres in some instances. Professor Min Li from Northwest A&F University has collected a 98 metre deep soil core as part of his research!

Or was it the history of the region – located on the Silk Road and very much at the heart of Chinese civilization. We learnt, at the Museum of Chinese Agricultural History (they also have a Soil Museum), that the first Chinese agricultural scientist dates back 2000 years!

Or was it the sheer scale, and quality, of the infrastructure whether that be buildings, roads, rail or airports (my only complaint for the trip was the High-Speed Train trip between Lanzhou and Yangling – there were so many tunnels they obscured the view!). Imagine an entire city dedicated to ‘agricultural science.’ Well, that is Yangling.

Or was it the food. Which was sensational!

Or was it the educational institutions we visited. Lanzhou University and Northwest A&F. It is difficult to comprehend the scale of China’s higher education system. Australia graduates around 900 university students from agricultural programs each year. Northwest A&F alone has 30,000 students enrolled in agriculture or related programs, and most Chinese provinces have an agriculture focused university.

It was also interesting to see how many international graduate students are studying at these institutions. We met students from Pakistan, Sudan (both South and North) and Kenya.

Or was it learning from our Chinese colleagues of the challenges that China faces in sustaining its agricultural productivity, and the enormity of the effort that is being invested into addressing these challenges, both within China and other parts of the world. Whilst Australia has many of the same/similar challenges, given its enormous population, China’s margin for error is much smaller. When combined with its history, this helps explain the emphasis on agricultural research, development and extension.

Or was it the people? Generous, polite, friendly, engaging and extremely hard working. We were warmly welcomed, and our hosts were only too happy to share their knowledge and experience with us.

The Climate Future & Smart Agriculture Forum and Study Tour were both funded by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations (NFACR) 澳中基金会 an initiative of the Australia Government. The Foundation seeks to strengthen understanding and engagement between Australia and China.

I applaud this initiative.

I have long thought that Australia has much more to gain than lose from increasing our collaboration and cooperation with China. Whether we like it or not, Australia’s future is inextricably linked to that of China.

Working together to address underlying challenges that are the building blocks of society (e.g. food, water, soil, energy, infrastructure, education and health) both within our own countries and around the world will help put us on a path to building a mutually beneficial ‘positive peace’ rather than seeking to avoid conflict through ‘deterrence’ (an approach that will ultimately fail Australia).

Finally, some thanks. Thanks to the Foundation for funding this event. Thanks to Professor Ren Yi. (PhD, IEAA-SF, Fellow of ARMS) for his leadership, to Joshua Langdon for his superb organisational skills, to Mengyin Li for her invaluable support and assistance in China, to the University of Southern Queensland and SQNNSW Innovation Hub , to all those who hosted and supported us during our trip and to my fellow PhD students ( Fynn De Daunton Shahmir Janjua Yiyi Xiong and Hari Pandey ) for the great company.