Minister Wan Gang met with the United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on November 18th, 2011. The two sides exchanged ideas on enhancing S&T cooperation in agriculture and staging joint flagship projects.

In the past decade, the joint working group mechanism established by MOST and USDA has played a positive role in fostering a close tie between enterprises, universities and research institutes of the two sides in the fields of mutual interest, which has generated laudable accomplishments. WAN hoped that the two sides would work together to promote substantive collaborations on flagship projects as a next step, allowing the findings derived from the joint agricultural research to benefit the two peoples.

Vilsack said S&T cooperation in the area of agriculture encouraged both sides to take full advantage of their respective strength and worke together to address global challenges. He also expressed the willingness to work with China on a range of flagship projects covering the areas of agricultural biotechnology, water-saving agriculture, and gene bank acquisition among others.

Minister Wan and Minister Vilsack then signed a letter of intent on flagship research projects in the area of agriculture.