Hubei Lianfeng Overseas Agriculture Development Group Co., Ltd. (“the Group” for short) is an export-oriented agricultural enterprise, which entered Mozambique in 2007 and built China-Mozambique Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center and Hubei-Gaza Friendship Farm. After the completion of the demonstration center, a number of state leaders visited.
In 2017, the offshore agricultural demonstration zone of the Mozambique-China Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center declared by the Group became one of the first overseas agricultural demonstration zones approved by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The total investment of the overseas agricultural demonstration zone is about 417.88 million yuan, and the investment in infrastructure and other construction projects has been about 110 million yuan.
China-Mozambique Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center, located in Boane, Maputo Province, Mozambique, covers an area of 52 hectares and was put into use in November 2010. Its main task is to carry out agricultural technology experiment, demonstration, training, popularization and others. More than 10 high-yield and high-quality rice varieties, 6 maize varieties, 20 vegetable varieties and 2 cotton varieties suitable for local cultivation have been screened successively, and more than 100 high-level agricultural technology demonstration and observation activities have been organized. A total of more than 3,000 staffs were trained. After the rice variety SIMAO was introduced by the demonstration center from China in 2009, it was quickly recognized by the country, and the planting area was extended to nearly 100,000 mu in three provinces.
Hubei-Gaza Friendship Farm, located in Xai-Xai, Gaza Province, Mozambique, covers an area of 100 hectares and has built a modern rice processing plant with a daily output of 30 tons. The farm mainly adopts the cooperation mode of “company + farmers” to help local farmers to plant and produce so that the unit yield has been greatly increased. The farm has aided farmers in improving their planting technology and production income, lifted their living conditions, and established a mutually beneficial and win-win relationship.
Relying on the demonstration center and Friendship Farm, the company has undertaken six international cooperation projects under Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, two “going-out” funding projects of Hubei Provincial Department of Agriculture, and one agricultural cooperation project of international organization. The implementation of the project mainly brought high-yield agricultural production technology and management methods to local farmers, carried out agricultural technology training courses, and trained more than 700 farmers, agricultural technicians and managers. At the same time, it has guided domestic agricultural enterprises to go abroad for development, forming a rice planting base of Wanbao African Agricultural Park and Lianhe African Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., with a planting scale of about 60,000 mu.
In the future, the Group will build an offshore center for international technology transfer of agricultural reclamation and agricultural technology based on overseas agricultural demonstration zone, popularize the cultivation technology of direct seeding upland rice, implement the project of sesame sowing & harvesting by machine, strengthen agricultural scientific and technological cooperation with relevant local institutions, further promote the development of Mozambican agriculture, and provide a demonstration platform for friendly agricultural cooperation between the two countries.
