AGD PhD programme

The focus is on developing and applying agricultural green development solutions and management measures to improve the sustainability and resilience of regional agro-ecological systems under emerging drivers: climate change impacts, increasing tourist activities, and socioeconomic developments. The geographical focus is on Hainan Island, its watersheds, and coastal waters (land-sea interactions), as well as its agricultural systems. Research and innovation efforts should be geared towards improving our understanding of past, current, and future sustainable development strategies for high-value and eco-friendly agricultural systems in Hainan. Given the recently introduced Free Trade Policy and ecological revolution policy in Hainan, this theme contributes to understanding how these newly introduced initiatives and economic investments, as well as tourism dynamics, will shape future agricultural food systems, whilst ensuring a clean, sustainable environment and healthy marine systems. This theme strongly advocates incorporating empowering strategies such as the Science & Technology Backyard model to help farmers improve their farm structure and competitiveness within sustainable tropical agricultural systems. To this end, systems analysis and integrated environmental-economic approaches can be developed to achieve these aims. The integration of social and natural sciences is strongly encouraged for tangible impact.

The agro-ecosystem is a diverse web of life, comprising crops as well as associated plants and non-crop habitats, containing above- and belowground biota (insects, micro-organisms), some of which cause disease and crop loss whilst others support plant and crop functioning. This theme explores, in a tropical context, the possibilities for conserving biodiversity and utilising ecosystem services from biodiversity to improve crop health and productivity, substitute anthropogenic inputs with natural processes as far as possible, and achieving high productivity, high product quality, high value, and high environmental quality. Practices such as agroforestry (trees with understorey cropping and grazing) integrate biodiversity to build resilience whilst increasing farmers' income. Ultimately, a healthy agro-ecosystem depends on biodiversity for productivity and stability, making them fundamentally interconnected.

Crop nutritional quality generally declines with yield increases as a result of the dilution effect. How to simultaneously improve quality, yield, and nutrient use efficiency of vegetable, fruit, and cereal crops remains a long-standing challenge towards global food security. The primary focus of the "High quality and high value" theme is to investigate the physiological, molecular, and genetic mechanisms of quality crop production in tropical regions. In particular, how to improve the quality of cash crops for higher value-added agricultural production and sustainable food provision? Low pH and nutrient imbalance are two frequent problems of tropical soils. This quality-oriented theme is also designed to better understand quality crop production along a resilient food supply chain via physiological approaches, modelling, and AI techniques when alleviating soil problems in Hainan and other tropical regions.

This theme focuses on tropical green sustainable development in and for the Global South, in particular, but not limited to, Africa. Projects under this theme will study, assess, and design both green agricultural development practices and systems in the Global South (drawing also on Chinese and European experiences such as STBs), as well as the sustainable agri-food trade and investment relations between China and the Global South. Issues of food security, resource efficiency, and environmental sustainability in plant, animal, fish, and integrated production systems are related to high-value and high-quality outputs that can contribute to sustainable development in the Global South.

Ms. Jingmeng Wang, agd-csc@cau.edu.cn