China Animal Husbandry Veterinary Intelligence Development Is Now Facing Critical Transformation

BEIJING, Dec. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently the '2016 China Animal Husbandry Veterinary Intelligence Development Strategic Forum' held by Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH and China Agricultural University Animal Medical School closed with a success. More than 130 experts and researchers attended the seminar including Wang Junxun, the Deputy Director of Ministry of Agriculture's department of animal husbandry, Chen Weisheng, the General Director of China Animal Disease Control Centre, Cai Xuepeng, the General Director of China Institute of Veterinary Drug Control and Stephen Lange, the Vice President of Boehringer Ingelheim.

The topic of this seminar was 'Intelligence leads innovation'. Based on the trend of China's animal husbandry industry, the participants discussed the multifaceted veterinary intelligence development strategies. The diverse aspects they covered consisted of the guidance of government policy, technological innovation, collaboration between colleges and corporations.

China Animal Husbandry Industry Suffers from a Lack of Intelligence, Especially Veterinary Area

The Deputy Director of the Department of Animal Husbandry, Ministry of Agriculture, Wang Junxun, expressed the opinion that China's animal husbandry industry is now accelerating its progress concerning the supply side structural transformation as well as its modernization. During this procedure, we would expect onerous and formidable challenges from the following main respects. First of all, we need to forward the industry structural alteration. Secondly, it is necessary to push on the founding of standardized large-scale husbandry. Next comes the establishment of sustainable green develop approach. Furthermore, we must strengthen the supply of forage. The fifth task was to ensure the safety of inputs in animal husbandry industry, particularly the feed. Last but not least, he emphasised the importance of expansion of poultry production.

China animal husbandry industry still has a long way to go in order to achieve its historical mission. One of the most significant constraints it confronts now is the severe shortage of intelligence especially in veterinary science. "Veterinarians in our country cannot offer satisfying professional service and their abilities require improvements," Chen Weisheng, the General Director of China Animal Disease Control Centre, explained. "There is a weakening trend in non-profit township animal husbandry and veterinary stations, especially in rural areas. The number of stations has declined from 45 thousand to 32 thousand between 1999 and 2014 with that of the employees decreasing from 250 thousand to only 140 thousand. Additionally, the vast majority of the base level staff are middle school graduates. The absence of business service organisations in those regions makes the situation even worse."

Facing such a circumstance, Chen Weisheng believed that a major reason is the uncompleted market system. The inconsistency of locus of operation between non-profit and business organisations is recognised vaguely. The top-down policy and legislation need to be improved. Consequently, we must separate two different types of entities more clearly and accelerate the establishing process of mature market as well as expertise and diversified social service organisations so that the professionals could practice their abilities.

The Corporations' Lack of Innovation Ability Leads to a Shortage of Innovative Property Right of Knowledge

Technological innovation is vital for the upgrade and sustainability of the industry as Cai Xuepeng, the General Director of China Institute of Veterinary Drug Control, noted in his speech. He stressed that the most essential aspect of supply side reformation is technology innovation. However, there are many problems regarding to China's veterinary drug innovations. To illustrate, the corporations are weak at innovation and face a shortage of innovative property rights of knowledge. In addition, there are many problems in product supply such as the drug homogeneity trend, inferior product structure, lagging vaccine research and so forth. And the ultimate solution of these problems relies on technology development through which we could adjust the industry structure, transform the methodology and promote the output as well as quality.

The first move, according to Cai, is to identify the correct direction which should be to energize the innovation ability by deepening the transformation of veterinary drug technology innovation system. Next comes the irony fact that 'new drugs' are not technologically new. Then we should solve the question between 'presence' and 'absence' and make researches practical to tackle real problems. The fourth and fifth points were to improve the technological research and learn from international advanced technology and equipment to improve the drug produce craft. The final step is to increase the cooperation between industry, academy and research to gain benefits from innovations.

The Animal Husbandry Veterinary Industry is Now Facing Critical Transformation

Based on the statement of Shen Jianzhong, an academician of China Agricultural University, as the strategy of invigorating the country through science, technology and education persists, animal husbandry veterinary industry is also experiencing a significant transforming period. There is a strong need for innovative and self-disciplined researchers as well as responsible and practical management intelligence. But more importantly and urgently, we need a group of steadfast fundamental workers fighting in the front line.

Shen also believe that on the one hand, the main body of intelligence training should be universities and colleges. On the other hand, corporations are the base testing and benefiting from the abilities of those graduates. Thus, both of them are responsible for training and developing intelligence and how well they collaborate and innovate becomes really essential.

To answer this question, the Vice President of Boehringer Ingelheim, Stephen Lange, shared his entity's experience of the talent developments through scholarship programs in collaboration with 12 agricultural universities and colleges all over the country. "As China's animal husbandry develops swiftly, we welcome more experienced, more competent and more enthusiastic veterinary professionals to join us," Lange said, "Our vision is to help Chinese farms produce more, better and safer animal products. Hence, we set up the scholarship programs to help and encourage outstanding veterinary students and we have granted 553 awards ever since 2006. We hope our aid helped them go further in their area, and through our cooperation with colleges, we could bring more excellent intelligence to the industry."

SOURCE China Animal Husbandry Veterinary Intelligence Development Strategic Forum Committee