By Yang Xun, People’s Daily
At the Longping Rice Museum in Changsha, central China’s Hunan province, a 20,000 Ariary banknote from Madagascar bears silent testimony to an agricultural revolution. Emblazoned with hybrid rice imagery, this currency artifact – presented by Madagascar’s Ambassador to Chin Jean Louis Robinson in 2022 – encapsulates a partnership transcending geography.
For decades, Madagascar’s struggle with food self-sufficiency persisted, constrained by seed limitations, antiquated farming methods, and infrastructural gaps. The breakthrough came through a strategic handoff: China’s hybrid rice expertise, honed by the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, transitioned to Yuan’s High-tech Seed Co., Ltd. for commercial deployment via their Madagascar branch. This pivot catalyzed nationwide adoption of high-yield rice cultivation.
According to Wan Jueming, executive deputy general manager of Yuan’s High-tech Seed Co., Ltd., the company has established a fully localized hybrid rice industrial chain in Madagascar, covering seed production, breeding, planting, processing, and sales. In Nigeria’s Kano State, it has set up a joint venture seed company to independently manage the entire hybrid rice industrial chain. Besides, in Malanje province, Angola, the company is collaborating with local enterprises to develop a 10,000-hectare hybrid rice industrial park. To date, Yuan’s High-tech Seed Co., Ltd. has promoted hybrid rice cultivation across 80,000 hectares in Africa.
The collaboration yielded an unexpected synergy. While transforming rice cultivation, the company recognized Madagascar’s premium yet undervalued mutton. In September 2024, history quietly unfolded as the first African lamb shipment reached Hunan – a tangible symbol of reciprocal exchange emerging from agricultural innovation.
Another key player in supporting African agricultural development with advanced technology is Longping High-tech, a Chinese agricultural company named after Yuan Longping, affectionately known as the “father of hybrid rice”– the revered pioneer whose hybrid rice breakthroughs reshaped global food security. This modern inheritor of Yuan’s vision is redefining South-South cooperation through innovative partnership models that intertwine technology transfer with human capital development.
The company’s footprint now spans 53 African nations, where its 200+ training initiatives have cultivated expertise among 7,000 agricultural specialists from Kenya’s highlands to Tanzania’s fertile plains. These programs transcend conventional aid frameworks, creating an intercontinental knowledge network where Chinese agronomists work shoulder-to-shoulder with African counterparts in experimental fields and processing facilities.
Weng Yong, a key architect of this initiative at the company’s international training academy, articulates the philosophy underpinning their approach: “Superior seeds form the foundation, but true agricultural resilience blossoms only when paired with adapted cultivation wisdom.” This dual focus – marrying cutting-edge biotechnology with context-sensitive implementation – reflects a maturation in China-Africa collaboration, moving beyond transactional exchanges toward sustainable capacity building.
Beyond the realm of technological innovation, structural frameworks now anchor the deepening symbiosis between Chinese and African economies. The China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo –institutionalized through its permanent exhibition hall in Changsha’s Yuhua District–manifests this evolution. Within its vaulted spaces, visitors navigate a sensory mosaic of transcontinental commerce: South African vintages aging in oak barrels, Guinean djembe drums whispering ancestral rhythms, and countless other artifacts of cultural-economic exchange.
Hunan Province, having hosted three iterations of the Expo, leverages this platform to recalibrate South-South trade dynamics. The Yuhua block of the China (Hunan) Pilot Free Trade Zone Changsha Area has transformed into a living atlas of African commerce, its shelves curating goods from all 53 African nations.
The block has also launched the “African Brand Warehouse” project and, in 2024, expanded imports to include cassava, pineapples, avocados, and other African agricultural and food products.
Additionally, Hunan Xiangjiang New Area has inaugurated a China-Africa Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Base, providing office space and a full suite of supporting services, including property management, business assistance, and resource matchmaking, to help young entrepreneurs grow and thrive.
The evolution of Sino-African collaboration now manifests through institutional alchemy – where entrepreneurial incubators transmute raw ambition into cross-continental enterprise. In Hunan’s Xiangjiang New Area, the China-Africa Youth Innovation Base operates as a catalytic chamber, offering subsidized workspace and operational scaffolding from legal compliance to market bridging. This ecosystem birthed narratives like that of Mali’s Aboubacar Garba Konte– graduating from the University of Science and Technology Beijing, he joined the base in June 2023 with his solar-powered motorcycle project, embarking on his entrepreneurial journey in Hunan.
“Today, I am not only a key manager at Mali’s project incubation station but have also successfully facilitated the export of Malian sesame to China,” said Konte. He is now in discussions with a Hunan-based new energy company to jointly launch a solar power system project in Mali, aiming to alleviate local electricity shortages.
“China-Africa cooperation is bringing tangible improvements to our lives,” he told People’s Daily.
According to Li Weimin, director of the foreign science and technology exchange center of Hunan Xiangjiang New Area, the base has established connections with over 200 government agencies, business associations, and enterprises from more than 50 African countries. It has also introduced innovation and entrepreneurship incubation stations from 8 African nations, including Tanzania, Egypt, and Nigeria.
The base has facilitated the export of drones, solar products, wigs, and bags from Mali’s incubation station while continuously expanding imports of Ethiopian, Rwandan, and Kenyan coffee, as well as Rwandan dried chili peppers.
In June this year, Changsha will host the fourth China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. Rebecca Miano, cabinet secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife of Kenya, emphasized that economic and trade cooperation lays a solid foundation for China-Africa mutual benefit and win-win development, helping both sides move towards a more competitive and sustainable future.
During the third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo, a Kenyan purple tea distributor (first from right) introduces Kenyan purple tea to attendees. (Photo by Yang Xun, Dong Yuanjun)
A 20,000 Ariary banknote from Madagascar, featuring a hybrid rice illustration, is housed in the Longping Rice Museum in Changsha, central China’s Hunan province. (Photo provided by the Longping Rice Museum)
Photo shows the Coffee Street, an African coffee trade center, in the Gaoqiao Grand Market in Changsha, central China’s Hunan province. (Photo by Gu Pengbo)
