Vice President of Kenya, Kalonzo Musyoka (XU SUHUI)

The important role agriculture plays in Sino-African relations was emphasized by the China-Africa Agriculture Cooperation Forum held in Beijing on August 11-12. At the opening ceremony, Kalonzo Musyoka, Vice President of Kenya, delivered a keynote speech before sitting down with ChinAfrica reporter Ni Yanshuo. He expressed his views on the information sharing bilateral links in the agricultural sector.

ChinAfrica: How important do you think agricultural cooperation is between Africa and China?

Kalonzo Musyoka: I think this is very important, because it forms part of the vision of Africa and China. First of all, I think it is a main anchoring point in terms of the Africa-China relationship, which as you know started in 2000 when we had the first Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

And then recently we had the Fourth FOCAC Ministerial Meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. As a result of that ministerial meeting, it was agreed that cooperation in agriculture be looked at.

Now, a lot of African countries still rely on agriculture as the backbone of their economies. In Kenya, for instance, we are in that category. Therefore when we are able to feed our people, when we are able to overcome the deficiency in food production, we can address other issues of development.

And therefore agriculture is the basic thing before we can think of other issues, because a country that cannot feed its people cannot claim to be truly independent. So this is why we value our friendship with the People's Republic of China. Because they stress friendship, they stress mutual respect. And they are able to see some of these weaknesses.

Therefore, we think as Kenya it is important to look at the area of technology transfer, including value addition, because we also want to be able to make agriculture more like a business. So if we are able to feed the people, then we are able to move to the next level of making agriculture a business venture.