On March 22-23, 2019, SUN Qixin, President of China Agricultural University (hereinafter referred to as CAU) visited the University of Sao Paulo (hereinafter referred to as USP) in Brazil, which stands first in both the comprehensive ranking and agricultural disciplines in Latin America, and conducted investigation and held talks on promoting the “double first-class” international cooperation, strengthening the collaboration between CAU and USP, and pushing forward the construction of the Alliance of World's Top Agriculture-related Universities (hereinafter referred to as A5).

    Accompanied by the Provost and Vice-president in charge of international cooperation, Agopyan, President of USP, met with SUN Qixin and his delegation. SUN Qixin introduced in detail the significant progress made by CAU and USP in the past three years since the establishment of the inter-university cooperative relationship. In particular, CAU and USP from developing countries jointly established A5. In 2019, CAU will host the First A5 Academic Forum and the First A5 Academic Competition for University Students, select students to participate in the summer term program of "Tropical Agriculture" and dispatch professors to attend the "China Day" event held by USP. Recently, a group of professors from CAU and USP has jointly launched the compilation of works on cooperation between China and Brazil in agriculture and food, and several professors from USP have been invited as foreign experts to CAU for academic cooperation and exchange.

    SUN Qixin mentioned in the meeting that CAU and USP, as the top agriculture-related universities in respective countries and regions, shoulder the major responsibility of national development, and suggested that CAU and USP should cooperate more intensively and deeply in order to accelerate mutual cooperation in agricultural higher education and research, and contribute more to the agricultural win-win cooperation between China and Brazil. At the end of the meeting, SUN Qixin invited Agopyan to visit CAU in 2019 for the purpose of promoting the cooperation between CAU and USP.

    Agopyan, President of USP, highly praised CAU’s suggestions on strengthening the cooperation and exchange in agricultural higher education and promoting the agricultural win-win cooperation between CAU and USP. Agopyan believed that both China and Brazil urgently need to expand the cooperation for the development of agricultural higher education, and he is full of confidence in the future cooperation between CAU and USP, as well as between China and Brazil because of the broad potential for the cooperation in agriculture. Additionally, Agopyan showed his gratitude to CAU for launching and hosting the First A5 Academic Forum and Academic Competition for University Students, and expressed his greatest support for participating in the summer term program in recent years and newly launched scientific research cooperation project. Finally, Agopyan accepted President SUN’s invitation, and said that he will arrange a visit to CAU as soon as possible to promote in-depth cooperation.

    After the talks, SUN Qixin visited the College of Agronomy, USP. Accompanied by Nussio, Vice President and Dourado, Dean of the College of Agronomy, SUN Qixin conducted a comprehensive and in-depth investigation on talent cultivation and scientific research events in the specialty of agriculture by successively visiting the Biology Experiment Center, Animal Science Experiment Center, Applied Economic Research Center, Brazil Big Data Center for Agricultural Products, Plant Physiology Laboratory and other departments, as well as the cooperative beef cattle breeding farm and soybean production farm so as to obtain insight into the production of agricultural products and the technological development in Brazil.

    During the visit to USP, SUN Qixin also met with the person in charge of the Department of Agricultural Innovation, the Ministry of Agriculture of Brazil, and negotiated about such matters as the government support for the cooperation between CAU and USP, and the invitation to the Minister of Agriculture of Brazil to visit CAU during his visit to China.

    During this visit, related officials from the International Office, College of Agronomy and Biotechnology and College of Economics and Management, CAU, discussed and formulated the specific inter-university cooperation plan with the relevant persons in charge from USP.

    JIN Weiwei, Dean of the College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, GUO Pei, Dean of the College of Economics and Management, and FENG Weizhe, Director of the International Office, CAU, participated in the events above.