Kingenta Leads Ground-breaking Sino-Israeli Agricultural Partnership

BEIJING, June 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Kingenta Ecological Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (Kingenta) has announced the launch today of a Kingenta-led major agricultural partnership between Israel and China at a ceremony attended by government officials, agricultural experts and corporate executives from both countries.

This partnership is centered on a set of technologies that provide integrated control and regulation of water and fertilizer and consists of five medium- or long-term interrelated projects that will profoundly affect the future of agricultural development. The projects include constructing 10 Sino-Israeli demonstration farms exploring modern agriculture, establishing 100 agricultural service centers, sending 1,000 Chinese scholars and experts on fact-finding visits to Israel, training and supporting 10,000 model agricultural households, and cultivating 100,000 leaders in modern farming.

The integrated control of water and fertilizer is a strategic choice by China for modern agricultural development. China produces 26% of the world's farm produce that feeds 20% of the world's population with only 9% of the world's farmland and 6% of its fresh water. Water shortage is one of the most severe problems facing China.

In addition, China is the world's largest fertilizer user, consuming 56 million tons annually, yet the efficiency of fertilizer use is 20% lower than that of developed countries. An integrated control system of water and fertilizer allows farmers to dissolve fertilizers in water beforehand and then convey the fertilizers to the roots of the crops evenly and precisely through irrigation. This can help farmers save 150 cubic meters of water per acre and cut fertilizer use by 20% to 30%. With the application of water-fertilizer integration technologies, it is possible to improve water and fertilizer use efficiency and thus increase yields by 20% to 50%, improve drought resistance, and ultimately raise the domestic agricultural ecological safety level. Water-fertilizer integration technologies can also help promote the standardization, automation, up-scaling and systematic intensification of future agricultural development.

The launching of the agricultural partnership between Israel and China is a direct and positive response to the recent state policies of China. "One Belt and One Road" development strategy proposed by the Chinese leadership seeking to boost connectivity and cooperation between countries along the "Silk Road Economic Belt" and the "Maritime Silk Road", primarily in Eurasia.

In addition, the 2015 CPC No.1 Central Document clearly called for innovative agricultural foreign cooperation models and advocated for more overseas agricultural cooperative development. Israel, being a desert country severely lacking in farmland and fresh water resources, has had experts working on water-fertilizer integration for decades and the result has been development of a successful technology that has brought the country significant strategic dividends. The Israelis have used the technology to create oases in the middle of deserts and turn their country into a global leader in farming technology.

The advance of agriculture in Israel has been seen as a miracle from a global perspective. Agricultural development in China needs to deal with both the shortage of fresh water resources -- a similar challenge that Israel faced decades ago -- and wasteful use of fertilizers, and with a reduction in soil fertility -- problems resulting from inappropriate use of fertilizers. "If we apply the Israeli technologies to Chinese agricultural production practices, Xinjiang province alone would be able to feed the population of the whole country", said Avi Hasson, Chief Scientist of Israel's Ministry of Economy.

As a pioneering company in Sino-Israeli agricultural development cooperation, Kingenta has already sent four groups of agricultural experts and scholars, farmer representatives and others in the industry to Israel on fact-finding missions, starting in 2014. "Kingenta is devoted to applying water-fertilizer integration technology to agricultural production practices in China, further expanding its cooperation with Israel, and better serving farmers, the rural areas, and the agricultural industry," Kingenta President Wan Lianbu said."We have already established a strong foundation for cooperation with Israel. Today's announcement marks a major step forward in realizing the benefits of that cooperation and we look forward to further advancing these ties to secure humankind's most basic need, food," he added.

About Kingenta

Founded in 1998, Kingenta Ecological Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (Kingenta) is a key Chinese hi-tech enterprise devoted to R & D, production and marketing of slow/controlled-release (SCRF), water soluble (WSF), compound, phosphorus chemicals and other specialty fertilizers. Kingenta is a national innovative enterprise with RMB 6.8 billion in total assets, more than 10,000 staff and 6 MMT of annual capacity, including 1.8 MMT SCRF, 0.4 MMT WSF, 1.8MMT of nitrate-based compound fertilizers and 2.0MMT of conventional NPK compound fertilizer. Kingenta's products have been exported to South Korea, Japan, Australia and Malaysia. Kingenta is a public company listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange (002470).

More information, please visit Kingenta's official website at: http://www.kingenta.com/en/.

SOURCE Kingenta

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