Recently, the Department of Rural and Social Development of MOST issued the "Preparatory notice on the Sino-US high-level forum on agricultural product processing and food safety". The project management office hopes that relevant research institutes, universities and enterprise personnel that are undertaking major project research will take an active part in this forum. MOST and the US Department of Agriculture (DOA) signed the "Sino-US agricultural S&T cooperation protocol" in 2002 and defined under the framework of this protocol 6 priority cooperation fields, including agricultural product processing and food safety. "Sino-US high-level forum on agricultural product processing" sponsored jointly by MOST and DOA and undertaken by Chinese Academy of Mechanization Sciences and the R&D education service center of DOA was held in the US on 20 and 21 of July, 2004. LI Xueyong, vice minister of MOST and REN Zhushan, vice minister of DOA attended the high-level forum and delivered the thematic report respectively. More than 60 Chinese and US experts and scholars attended the forum, which was a complete success.

In accordance with the resolution of the third conference of Sino-US agricultural S&T cooperation work group, MOST and DOA decided to hold the second Sino-US high-level forum on agricultural product processing and the first Sino-US forum on food safety technology in Beijing in September 2005.