On Friday, the Hunan Daily team visited the Maruo Farms in the Central River Region, which occupies about 120 hectares of land. The trip was an opportunity for the team to interact and see the current status of ongoing rice production in the fields.
The trip was under the framework of the forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative, where China-Africa has been increasingly deepened with fruitful results.
Since the first season of Hunan Daily’s ‘Entering Africa’ has produced favorable responses, there, the Hunan Daily planned to launch the second season of reporting with the aim to showcase the dynamism and mutually beneficial landscape in agricultural cooperation between China and Africa.
In recent years, China-Africa cooperation has become closer and more fruitful, showcasing the beautiful scenes and touching stories of China-Africa win-win cooperation.
From July 12 to July 20, an interview delegation from China's Hunan Daily also visited Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal and then, The Gambia. The interview delegation comprised seven journalists from all media, including writers, editors and photographers.
Changsha is the permanent venue of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. In 2023, the first quarter of "Going to Sea Entering Africa" carried out by Hunan Daily achieved good results, and Hunan Daily continued to carry out the second quarter of "Going to Sea Entering Africa" this year.
The first stop for the Hunan Daily delegation that came to Cote d'Ivoire located in Duekoue, Ivory Coast, Meilan Group Plant II which is the largest natural rubber plant in Africa.
From July 12 to July 16, the delegation mainly interviewed Zhu Chen, chairman of Meilan Group, Rubber farmers and workers working in rubber factories, as well as the chairman of the Rubber Committee of the Lower Sandra Region of Côte d'Ivoire.
The team learned how the arrival of Chinese enterprises has changed the face of the local rubber industry and cooperated to help increase the added value of agricultural products in Côte d'Ivoire.
The second stop of the Hunan Daily delegation was Senegal. From July 17 to 18, the delegation interviewed Zhou Jianpeng, an agricultural expert from China's Longping Hi-Tech Group, and local vegetable farmers in the vegetable base of the China Agricultural Aid Group in Dakar.
Senegal is not fully self-sufficient in vegetables and is partially dependent on imports. In recent years, through demonstration planting, technical guidance and technical training, Chinese agricultural experts have been committed to testing new vegetable varieties and popularising advanced vegetable planting techniques to help local farmers increase vegetable varieties and output.
In that interview, the team focused on how Chinese experts and local vegetable farmers were working together to increase vegetable varieties and increase vegetable production.
In the same vein, Panpan Hu, the head of the Hunan Daily media team declared that last year, Hunan Daily’s “Journey to Africa” achieved good results in the first-quarter.
She explained that this year too, Hunan Daily would carry out the second quarter of the “Journey to Africa,” leading them to explore the Gambian agricultural aid project site.
She revealed that her delegation learned that the Gambia government is vigorously improving the level of agricultural mechanisation to achieve food self-sufficiency. In this process, she notes that China's agricultural aid projects have played an important role.
