March 19, 2014 - On Feb. 19-28, CSAM reached out to major partners and stakeholders, including IFAD, OECD, FAO, ENTAM and CEMA, as Mr. Bing Zhao, Head of CSAM, participated in the 37th Governing Council of IFAD and the 2014 OECD Annual Meeting of the Tractor Codes.

During the 37th Governing Council of IFAD (Feb. 19-20, Rome), which focused on smallholder family farming amid the celebration of the International Year of Family Farming, Mr. Zhao met with Ms. Hoonae Kim, Director of the Asia-Pacific Division and IFAD’s country programme managers. The two sides briefed each other of their respective programmes of work and priorities and explored opportunities of collaboration especially in better aligning CSAM’s activities with IFAD’s country programmes in Asia and the Pacific. CSAM presented concept notes for IFAD’s regional grants projects.

The meetings with Dr. Laurent Thomas, ADG of the Department of Technical Cooperation, and Dr. Ren Wang, ADG of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection of FAO focused on: 1) potential areas of collaboration in technical cooperation project, particularly through South-South Cooperation; 2) the role mechanization in sustainable agriculture development; 3) the relevance of ANTAM in ensuring safety and quality of farm machinery; and 4) specific technical issues regarding the combination of machinery and agronomy, especially the prospect of mat-type rice transplanting.

Meetings with Dr. Xia Jingyuan, Chinese PR to FAO, WFP and IFAD, and Mr. Zhang Zhengwei, Chinese Governor with IFAD, explored possible funding channels through China-related cooperation funds.

Mr. Zhao went on to meet with Dr. Michael Ryan, Head of the Tractor Codes of OECD, and Dr. Sandro Liberatori, Director of ENTAM (European Network for Testing of Agricultural Machines), during the 2014 OECD Annual Meeting (Feb. 26-27, Paris). Agreement has been reached on a number of issues pertinent to the preparations for the first Annual Meeting of ANTAM (the Asian and Pacific Network for Testing of Agricultural Machinery) to be held in September 2014.

The discussion with Mr. Gilles Dryancour, President of CEMA (Comité Européen des groupements de constructeurs du machinisme agricole), explored areas of common interest from a public-private partnership perspective.