When the two pandas Xing Er and Mao Sun arrived at Copenhagen Airport after a long journey from China Thursday evening 4 April 2019, they were not the only exciting things on board the airplane. A signed memorandum of understanding concerning concrete possibilities for collaboration between leading Chinese biotech companies and Viborg Municipality – with AU Foulum as the fulcrum – were also on the plane. 

The memorandum of understanding was brought home by Viborg Municipality along with Head of Department Erik Steen Kristensen, AGRO, Head of Department Klaus Lønne Ingvartsen, ANIS, and Special Consultant Else Thordahl Meyer, DCA, after just over a week in China and prior efforts and meetings in Denmark. The new memorandum of understanding is about establishing a research and development unit in Viborg Municipality, that is to say AU Foulum, with a focus on green protein and probiotics. 

Just as it has taken a long time to negotiate the acquisition of the pandas to Copenhagen Zoo, many months have been spent on preparations for the new collaboration agreement between China and Viborg Municipality. The memorandum of understanding is the first result of the agreement that was entered into in June 2018 between Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Development Zone (WEHDZ), ST at Aarhus University, and Viborg Municipality to develop innovation environments at each other’s locations. Since then, a working group has concerned itself with investigating and specifying which collaborations could be considered.

- We began with a wide range of proposals and ended up with two: green biorefining and feed for laying hens, and healthy animals without the use of antibiotics, explains Erik Steen Kristensen, who together with Else Thordahl Meyer from DCA represented ST in the working Group. 

Green and healthy

Initially, the focus will thus be on green protein and probiotics. 

The Sino-Danish company Dueholm-Wuhan Organic Agriculture Company Ltd. will collaborate with the researchers in Foulum with the aim of producing healthy eggs based on green protein. 

- The Chinese can take advantage of our knowledge and technology about green biorefining to produce sustainable eggs for their enormous domestic market, and we can benefit from their investments in research in the area, says Erik Steen Kristensen.  

The Chinese company Chinese Polypeptide Group, which has already established subsidiaries in the USA and Canada, has made an agreement with Viborg Municipality to establish itself in the municipality. They would like to have a particular focus on developing probiotics for the global market, where China itself is a huge market, not least because they have half of the world’s pig production. In the long term, probiotics can hopefully lead to a reduced use of antibiotics and prevent development of antibiotic resistance. 

- I am really pleased that the Chinese company would like to move some of its research activities and production of probiotics to Viborg. I will gather the relevant researchers in ANIS to prepare proposals for specific topics we can collaborate on with Chinese Polypeptide Group. We have the expertise within animal health, nutrition and production, including the gut microbiome and how it can be affected, while they have the expertise in production of peptides and probiotics. I hope that with the right research collaboration proposals we can contribute to a quick establishment of the company, preferably in Foulum, says Klaus Lønne Ingvartsen. 

The long-term hope is that the deal can attract more Chinese capital and companies to AU Foulum.   

- The Chinese tell us that they have the market and we have the technology. A combination of their huge demand for food and our knowhow about efficient and green food production can lead to good collaboration and development of the future AU Foulum, while contributing to improvement of Chinese food production with regard to environment, climate and health, says Erik Steen Kristensen.