The Sino-Moroccan Horticultural Cooperation Conference was held at Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU) on Oct 17.
The conference, hosted by HZAU's College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, aimed to foster deeper exchanges and cooperation in the fields of horticulture and landscape architecture. Representatives from the Agadir Horticultural Complex (CHA) in Morocco, France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), the École normale supérieure de Lyon, and Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 participated in the event.
It was chaired by Fu Xiaopeng, a professor at HZAU's College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences.
Long Jianfei, secretary of the college's Party committee, welcomed the delegation and hailed the cross-border cooperation on horticultural research.
Xu Qiang, director of the National Key Laboratory of Germplasm Innovation and Utilization of Horticultural Crops and vice-dean of the College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, introduced HZAU to the guests.
He detailed its future cooperation plans and the development directions in horticultural crop research and landscape architecture.
Farid Lekjaa, dean of CHA, and Mohammed Bendahmane, from the École normale supérieure de Lyon, spoke of the current status of the Moroccan horticultural industry, as well as its advantages and future cooperation plans.
Preliminary cooperation intentions were reached and a framework agreement was signed on landscape architecture research, the development of virus-resistant and drought-tolerant citrus varieties, tomato and blueberry breeding research, as well as cooperation on student training and faculty exchange visits.
After the conference, the delegation visited HZAU's Citrus Research Base. The visitors showed great interest in the achievements HZAU has made in developing disease-resistant and stress-tolerant citrus varieties and advanced breeding techniques.
Xu Qiang and representatives of the delegation visit the Citrus Research Base.[Photo/news.hzau.edu.cn]
Lekjaa spoke of a high degree of compatibility and complementarity between HZAU's horticultural research and that of Morocco. He said he looked forward to deepening cooperation to jointly enhance agricultural productivity in both countries and contribute to sustainable agricultural development.