Anji consensus issued in Zhejiang province

The Anji Consensus on the Development of Emerging Agricultural Education in China was issued in Anji county, Zhejiang province on Friday to further develop the country's higher agricultural and forestry education, according to the Ministry of Education.

More than 140 agricultural university administrators and agricultural and forestry education experts gathered in Yucun village in Anji to issue the consensus.

President Xi Jinping came up with the philosophy that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets in his visit to Anji in 2005, when he was Party secretary of Zhejiang province.

The consensus stressed that China's higher agricultural and forestry education must fulfill its responsibilities of winning the battle against poverty, implementing rural revitalization strategies and promoting eco-civilization.

Comprehensive universities should give full play to their comprehensive disciplinary advantages to support the development of agriculture-related majors, while agricultural and forestry universities should focus on the coordinated development of their multiple agricultural and forestry disciplines, it said.

As a world agricultural power, the world's largest developing country and largest provider of higher education, China's higher agricultural and forestry education can contribute the country's wisdom and solutions to global food security, agricultural and rural development, as well as sustainable development, it said.

Wu Yan, director of the ministry's department of higher education, said the ministry plans to develop a number of first-class agriculture and forestry majors and courses.

The ministry has the responsibility to gather talent and scientific and technological services from agricultural universities to contribute to poverty alleviation, rural revitalization and the development of modern agriculture, a new countryside, new farmers and a new ecology in the new era, he said.