China's Ministry of Agriculture and the General Electric company announced in Beijing on Tuesday that they are to cooperate on making agricultural pesticides more environmentally friendly.

The Chinese Ministry has signed a memorandum with GE Advanced Materials in relation to a GE-produced spray. The spray aims to help crops better absorb pesticides from their leaves, so as to reduce chemical pollution to soil and water from pesticide run-off.

An official from the Agriculture Ministry said that bases for experimenting on, and modeling, the technology would be set up in 13 provinces and cities, covering more than a dozen different crops in the country.

(CRI November 23, 2005)