On December 12, 2014, Prof. Huang Jikun, Director of Agricultural Policy Research Center, CAS, member of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, chief scientist of global change-national key scientific research plan project, visited our School and gave the first session of Advancedagriculture lecture series of Peking university, with “Innovation in Agricultural Science and Technology and China’s Food Security” as the theme.

Prof. Huang made the following statement during his lecture: “Prominent improvements have been made in China’s food security in recent years. thanks to the three driving forces for the growth of main agricultural products such as crops, namely technological progress, institutional innovation and market reform, among which technological progress as a result of agricultural technological innovation has become the main engine driving the growth of agricultural productivity since the mid-1980s, and such progress will also function as the core driving force for China’s agricultural development and food security in the future. However, while embracing opportunities for development, agricultural technological innovation is also facing daunting challenges, with the current agricultural scientific research and technology extension system as well as incentive mechanism are severely constraining the innovation capacity of China’s agricultural sciences and technologies. To guarantee China’s food security, we must review the existing agricultural policies and make major adjustments in food security strategies, while enabling reforms in the institutional system and mechanism of agricultural science and technology with increased investment in agricultural scientific research and technology extension. An agricultural technological innovation system must be built with combined efforts of the public and private sectors, gradually enabling enterprises to play the principal role in China’s agriculturaltechnological innovation in the future.”

After the lecture, Prof. Huang Jikun participated in a heated academic discussion with the faculty and students of our School.