With assistance from the GRDC members of the WA Grains Group travelled to China in September to secure direct access to Chinese wheat markets and gain a greater understanding of wheat end-users in China for the purpose of value adding our grain products and better meeting market specifications in the process.
The WA Grains Group travelled with a technical team from Murdoch University. The Technical team consisted of members of the staff from the Australia China Centre for Wheat Improvement (ACCWI), Professor Rudi Appels, Professor Wujun Ma, and Hollie Webster Wheat Research Fellow BRur.Sc(Hons).
• Our first point of call was at the China Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) where Professor Ma had studied as a student. It is located in Beijing, however when he was a student 20 years ago it was surrounded by wheat fields. CAAS houses the China arm of ACCWI, while we were there they pointed out the long involvement of the Academy with world wide collaboration with those involved in CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre) (Spanish Acronym). They work on Variety development such as processing quality, disease resistance, and yield potential. In more recent times they have applied themselves to Molecular Marker development application along with International networking, training and workshops. The other International agencies that they collaborate with include USDA centre for Wheat Quality and Pathology, Sino Australian China Centre for Wheat Improvement (Murdoch) and Sino-Japan Joint Noodle Quality Laboratories.
WA Grains Group 