China-Africa Agricultural Cooperation’s Model,Performance And Countermeasures

In the context of economic globalization, China-Africa relations play an increasingly important role in China’s foreign relations. Respective economic characteristics make China-Africa agricultural cooperation has become an important part of China-Africa relations. The premise and foundation of China-Africa agricultural cooperation are complementary agricultural resources; African countries have vast undeveloped land while China has a wealth of practical agricultural technology. The purpose is to improve the technical level of agricultural production in African countries and to exploit agricultural resources cooperatively, thus both sides can benefit from the China-Africa agricultural cooperation. After half a century of development, China-Africa agricultural cooperation has formed a multi-level, multi-channel, multi-form cooperation and exchanges; however, the process of China-Africa cooperation in agriculture also has a lot of problems and difficulties. Combining with the potential and trends of agricultural development in Africa and China, to identify research priorities and difficulties, and to make research more efficient, this study focuses on such three patterns as agricultural technology transfer from China to Africa, China’s direct investment in agriculture in Africa and Sino-African trade in agricultural products.Chinese agricultural technology transfer to Africa is an important part of China-Africa agricultural cooperation and it is an important basis for the further development of other modes of agricultural cooperation. Based on complementary agricultural resources, the use of China’s agricultural technology to improve the level of agricultural production in African countries, is the expectation of African countries for agricultural cooperation, and also is the main way of benefiting from agricultural cooperation for African countries. Chinese agricultural technology transfer to Africa has developed various forms; the main technical assistance project currently is agricultural technology demonstration centers. However, China Agricultural Technology Assistance Projects lack sustainability, limits the effect of technical transfer, the main reason is that technical assistance projects is mainly based on Chinese experience, without taking into account the ability of acceptance of African countries. For this reason, based on the research of Oromia region in Ethiopia, this paper analyzes the limitations of local farmers adopting Chinese Agricultural Technology. The main findings are:(1)Local agricultural technology is in close contact with the local farmer’s traditional culture and lifestyle, and the use of Chinese agricultural technology needs local farmers gradually change their habits, so it would be a long process; Chinese aid projects should pay attention to its own sustainable development for better results.(2) As agricultural production is a multi-link system, changes in one link of the agricultural production will bring other links inappropriate, so Chinese agricultural technology transfer to Africa should pay attention to improve the whole links of local agricultural production technology.(3) Dissemination of information and knowledge have a significant role in promoting local farmers to adopt Chinese agricultural technology. Chinese agricultural technical assistance projects need to strengthen the promotion and education of China’s agricultural technology. This paper also proposed the suggestions for sustainable development of China’s agricultural technology demonstration centers.China’s direct investment in agriculture in Africa is an important mode of exploiting African agricultural resources cooperatively. Chinese enterprises to invest in Africa’s agriculture began from contracting Chinese aid farms, later evolved into other forms of joint venture and wholly owned. This paper analyzes the distribution of the Chinese agricultural enterprises to invest in Africa among African countries, the motives to open agricultural enterprises in Africa, and using Wanbao Group to invest in Mozambique as an example analyze the Chinese-invested enterprises how to choose the appropriate business model in accordance with the investment characteristics of the target country. The main findings are (1) Chinese Agribusinesses in Africa concentrate on transition and pre-transition countries, which are mainly agriculture-based countries, underdeveloped, indicating that China’s agricultural investment is resource-seeking.(2) The Factors Analysis of Chinese agribusinesses contribution shows that Chinese agricultural enterprises tend to invest in countries without high foreign stocks, which is in accordance with the relative lack of international competitiveness of Chinese foreign investment enterprises. However, the infrastructures in these countries are generally more backward.(3) Mozambique is rich in national resources, but its market system is far from perfect, So Wanbao Group’s investment employs the business model with control of the full industrial chain. For the unfamiliar industrial chain links, Wanbao introduces other Chinese agricultural enterprises to implement a cooperation contract. Through the above analysis, Chinese investment in African agriculture while face many implied risks. The paper gives appropriate advice on following five aspects as the collection of information and risk aversion, investment mode selection, local staff management, agricultural market development and strengthens international exchanges and cooperation.China-Africa agricultural trade is an integral part of the African agricultural cooperation. China-Africa trades of agricultural products get fast development in recent years, but the proportion of agricultural trade between China and Africa in the Sino-African trade is very small, and the proportion has a downward trend. This paper analyzes the sources of growth in agricultural trade between China and Africa, the African trade in agricultural comparative advantage in their respective markets, and analyzes the effect of China tariff-free policy on the implementation of the African LDCs. Main findings are:(1)The growth of Sino-African agricultural trade (including exports and imports) mainly origins from very few African countries and very few agricultural goods, so the base for the growth of Sino-African agricultural trade is weak.(2) The comparative advantage of Sino-African agricultural trade in their respective markets is negative, and the negative value has a growing trend, which indicating that Sino-Africa agricultural products in their respective market do not have the comparative advantage, and Sino-African trade in agricultural products gradually lags behind Sino-African trade in products of other area, meanwhile gradually lags behind the agricultural products trade between other countries.(3) implementation of Tariff-free policy has a positive impact to improve the capacity of African countries to China’s agricultural exports,however, tariff-free policy merely has the positive effect on the increase of limited sorts of products exported from the least developed African countries to China. These products are the primary agricultural products where the African countries have the comparative advantage and already exported a large scale to China before. To solve the problem of Sino-African trade in agricultural products relies on the developments of these two major China-Africa agricultural cooperation models. Through technology transfer and direct investment, China-Africa agricultural cooperation improves the capacity of African countries in agricultural products exports, and improves living standards of farmers in Africa, then China-Africa trade in agricultural products obtain tangible improvement.These three modes of China-Africa agricultural cooperation is mutually reinforcing, closely linked, together constitute an organic whole of Africa agricultural cooperation. Due to limitations of time and space, the paper does not include all of the China-Africa agricultural cooperation mode and format, such as China’s participation in the South-South cooperation to benefit Africa and Other Chinese forms of technology transfer in agriculture in Africa, which are worthy of further research directions.