Toby Gardner’s Post

I was incredibly fortunate to spend the last week in Beijing with my Trase - Intelligence for sustainable trade friends and colleagues André Vasconcelos and Mark Titley. The last time I was in China was in 2014, so I arrived somewhat green and wide-eyed but with a desire to be open-minded and learn. And learn we did! On so many fronts. Here are just three: My most personal learning was the need to put aside assumptions and prejudice, put aside labels and institutional affiliations and engage with people as, well, people. There is so much misconception and bias on China in the west which underpins so much (sometimes wilful) ignorance of the leadership and progress that there is on many sustainability agendas. I am not stary-eyed, like many other parts of the world China and the Chinese people face immense challenges, but there is also so much to learn from. And it was truly inspiring to meet and learn from many environmental leaders working in China. Another lesson was a reminder to not take things for granted. A common narrative is that China´s demand for agricultural commodities is insatiable, and this assumption lies behind a lot of agricultural expansion and land speculation in countries such as Brazil. But it is highly likely that a combination of changing animal feed and diet shifts could reduce demand for soy by 10s of percent in the next decade alone. We were thrilled to kick off a new partnership that will bring more clarity and transparency to these shifting demand signals with the amazing team at the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy(AGFEP) at China Agricultural University led by the inspiring Dr. Shenggen Fan, and Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) led by FOLU China´s amazing Director Fengwei Ina Liu. A third lesson is that China’s role in shaping South-South cooperation on trade is only set to skyrocket. And with the right enabling conditions this offers real potential to reset the sustainability of agricultural trade. The energy and openness to engage among many Chinese actors was very evident. Trade between Brazil and China could be the key to unlock this shift. Both countries have shown real leadership on the environmental stage, including in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the forthcoming COP 30. And the significance of trade between these two countries is quite mind-blowing. It is by far the largest bilateral agricultural trading relationship in the world, with half of Brazil´s exports going to China and one third of China´s imports coming from Brazil. And many sustainability initiatives, including led by civil society organizations and the private sector in both Brazil and China are already underway to unlock this potential. Under Trase´s new strategy our work in and on China will be ever more center-stage. We are excited by the potential for Trase's data and analyses to help break down barriers, challenge assumptions and support greater cooperation around sustainable trade.