Among all the challenges that are facing China’s Agriculture in terms of postharvest technology and management of fresh products, the biggest one is the absence of practical knowledge and theories. In this regard, a training programme on postharvest technology, developed by Wageningen University and Research was organized in Beijing, China.
The agriculture industry of China is seeing critical changes, which includes the growing yet immature industrial chain. Due to the inadequacy of practical theory throughout the chain, particularly in the postharvest preservation field, the agricultural business has encountered insurmountable difficulties. On awareness of this, leaders and entrepreneurs from this industry are persistently seeking suitable theories and guidelines from abroad.
Local partner
The course was organized with the support from a local partner in Beijing: Yunzhongyang (Beijing) Internet Technology Co., Ltd.. Yang Tianlong, the founder of Yunzhongyang, joined the earliest postharvest technology open course organized by Wageningen Academy in Shanghai in 2015. Based on the knowledge and technologies he learnt from this course, he updated the posthavest quality and management system for fresh sweetcorn and successfully saved millions RMB of costs for his own business – the ZOME, China’s biggest sweet-corn producer. The course was very valuable for him and should be also valuable to other Chinese agricultural entrepreneurs who face similar challenges in practice. This year, he became co-organizer of the postharvest technology open enrollment course in China, with the aim to help to introduce valuable knowledge and technologies to China.
The programme attracted numerous technical managers, voice-makers and decision-makers from China’s agricultural field. Excellent technologies and theories has been brought to China, in the transformation period. During the three day programme thirty-nine Chinese and one Malaysian trainee discovered a whole new world, integrating all the new knowledge and technologies obtained into a set of systematic and practical theories.
The programme was provided by the following Wageningen University & Research experts: ir. J.A. (Jan) Verschoor and ir. M.J.M. (Maxence) Paillart from Wageningen Food & Biobased, who were the lecturers.
Z. (Zhen) Liu PhD was also involved on behalf of both Wageningen Food & Biobased Research and Wageningen Academy as programme manager.
Source: Wageningen University & Research