Despite of the worldwide travel restrictions due to COVID-19, the two ADT experts                           Dr Ferdinand Schmitt and Henrik Delfs got the opportunity to travel to China in the beginning of October this year to intensify the project implementation. After mandatory quarantive of two weeks, the experts joined the project team in Peking.

During the following 8 weeks our experts travelled through China and visited the various demonstration farms of the project. Dr. Schmitt, team leader and long term expert for the cattle component, visited the Hebei Provincial Animal Breeding Workstation, Shanxi Datong demonstration farm, Zhangbei demonstration farm, Sichuan Academy of Grassland Sciences and Sichuan Yangping demonstration farm. He was accompanied by Chinese experts from the National Animal Husbandry Services (NAHS) and researchers from universities to support the exchange of technical know-how in the on-going projects and discuss future activities in the project.

Henrik Delfs, long term expert for the pig component visited the two demonstration farms in Shanxi Liuma (2 weeks) and in Henan Yifa (3 weeks) to coordinate trainings for the farm staff as well as evaluate the ongoing activities of the project. The German experts received great support from the local project team in Peking (Yang Xiaomin, He Yuan and Sun Qilong) as well as from the NAHS during the travel and organisation.

During the last week in China, the project staff participated at the 6^th Sino-German Agricultural Week with two specialized events dedicated to pig and cattle breeding in cooperation with the NAHS. The pig symposium was held online with eight experts from Germany and China covering the current sector developments in breeding, housing and animal health. More than 100 participants followed the invitation for the 4-hour event on the 1^st of December.

The cattle symposium was organized as a hybrid event, combining an online component with physical participation of more than 90 experts from private sector and research institutions from all over China covering the latest achievements in the Chinese breeding sector.

Last week, our experts ended their successful trip to China and came back to Germany to celebrate Christmas with their families.