Free China's assistance to the developing countries of Africa is rapidly approaching the point of institutionalization. Yet it was only seven years ago that the first farm demonstration team went to Liberia. As of 1968, seventeen agricultural and two veterinary missions are serving in Africa. More than 500 technicians are sharing their knowledge with friendly countries that aspire to their own versions of the Taiwan success story.
The results have been out of all proportion to investment or expectation. Country after country has found that it is possible to increase the rice yield manyfold. In every case, the additional dividend of vegetables has been enthusiastically welcomed. Most of the countries formerly were deficient in produce and in some cases imported vegetables by air as an expensive luxury.
Taiwan's labor-intensive but thoroughly modern agricultural methods have turned out to be just what Africa needs. 'Tractors may be more efficient, but Africa has plenty of labor and not enough money to buy all the machinery required for a productive agriculture. The agricultural demonstrations have shown, however, that a willingness to work hard must be backed up with good seeds, proper fertilization and pest control, sufficient irrigation, careful weeding and efficient harvesting and processing.
Wherever possible, the demonstration teams use local materials instead of suggesting costly imports. One example would be the employment of bamboo instead of expensive pipe for irrigation facilities. What is available on Taiwan is often also within reach of African farmers. Such realism lent great effectiveness to the Republic of China's advisory program.
This article sets forth some of the recent developments in a number of the African countries. The material dealing with Senegal is from a report by Oswald B. Anderson, formerly a Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction information officer in Taiwan. He is now working with a U.S. Department of Agriculture team in Senegal.
The Chinese agricultural mission to Senegal began its work at Diende in the department of Sedhiou, region of the Casamance, southern Senegal, in 1964. Its purpose is to demonstrate and extend double-crop, rice production under controlled irrigation.
With the help of Senegalese engineers, farmers from the Republic of China cleared and terraced a forested valley. A small dam and a diversion ditch were constructed at the head of the valley to provide a year-around flow of water.
The method demonstrated by the Chinese team involves several other critical elements: choice of the variety best adapted to the soil and the season, weed control, use of chemical fertilizers and insecticides, density of planting and transplanting from nurseries.
By transplanting they are able to get a crop started earlier in the year, and by a relay method of planting can take advantage of the seasons by growing a second crop immediately behind the previous one. While harvesting on one side of a field they can be planting a new crop on the other.
In theory, three crops a year are thus possible. In practice, because the winter temperature in the Casamance sometimes drops to a point hazardous to the brief, delicate blossoming of the rice, it is more practical to raise vegetables or to grow a green manure crop during the third season.
Nevertheless, the results of two crops of rice a year, grown by the Chinese method, are impressive. In its first season the Chinese team demonstrated yields equivalent to 3,888 kilos per hectare from one crop, more than double the yield of fields cultivated by traditional methods in the Casamance.
Mastery of water enables the Chinese farmers to control times of planting without much dependence on season. In January and February, when the countryside is brown and dry, they are planting rice. This crop is harvested and a second crop is planted by July at the beginning of the rainy season. Then the native farmers are hampered by too much water. The Chinese lead the excess water away from their paddies. Some Senegalese farmers are still planting their first and only crop of the year while the Chinese are harvesting their second crop.
As the Chinese became familiar with Senegal soil and climate they improved their techniques. Where necessary they used lime to correct soil acidity and they ran experiments to determine the most suitable strains of rice.
Beginning in 1965 they harvested two crops a year. They averaged 11,136 kilograms per hectare from two crops that year and 10,836 kilos per hectare from two crops in the dry year of 1966.
In 1967 their February-June crop averaged 5,832 kilos per hectare and their second or July-November crop 5,175 kilos for a 11,007 kilos per hectare total for the year. Average yields of Casamance farmers run from less than 1,000 up to 1,500 kilos per hectare.
One 1967 Chinese plot, planted February 7, yielded 7,300 kilos per hectare when it was harvested in late May and early June. Another plot, planted in February and harvested between 111 and 119 days later, also yielded more than seven tons.
At the same time the Chinese farmers are showing that fertilizer and insecticides payoff for upland rice as well. "Riz de plateau" planted in January and harvested between 126 and 136 days later yielded the equivalent of 3,044 kilos per hectare. .
The soils of the Casamance soon become exhausted; hence intensive cropping requires fertilizers. The Chinese normally apply 400 kilos of nitrogen sulphate per hectare (vs. up to 600 in Taiwan), 200 kilos of 21% phosphate and 80 kilos of potash.
Half of the nitrogen goes on during soil preparation and the remainder at 10 and 20 days after transplanting. Care is needed in the rainy season to prevent loss of soluble fertilizers. But by controlling the flow of water from one terrace to another the Chinese farmers are able to prevent the washing away of these soil nutrients.
Under their system water moves leisurely from one terraced paddy to another. There is always some water standing on the field. Spillways and border ditches carry off excess water during the wet season, when more than enough water is available. The Chinese were not disturbed when 443.9 mm. of rain fell in September, 1967, contrasted with 304.3 mm. in September, 1966, but neighboring Senegalese farmers were hampered by the high water.
The Chinese method depends on a complete "package" of practices, each of which contributes to the superior yields, and is essential to the profitable exploitation of the fields which have been terraced and watered at considerable labor and expense.
Density of plants is one of the keys to their method's success. The Chinese aim for a population of 190,000 plants per hectare, each plant containing three to five shoots. They are set out 20 centimeters apart, in straight rows spaced 25 centimeters. This facilitates weeding, normally done twice. As the crop matures it is almost impossible to find weeds or grass competing with the rice in their paddies. Without weeding the harvest would be reduced 10 to 30 per cent, they believe. Transplanting from nurseries enables them to get a crop started when timing is a critical factor in crop management.
The Chinese method involves more labor than the traditional culture but pays off in more grain per man-hour of work. Double cropping also involves cash expense for fertilizer, chemicals and equipment not employed in traditional Senegalese rice culture.
Rice everywhere is susceptible to disease and pests. Traditional Casamance methods do not include their control. The Chinese farmers spray their crops as many as five times against rice blast and stem borers. As the rice is in rows, they can carry their sprayers through the paddies without harm to the growing crop. They have demonstrated that native Senegal varieties as well as seeds brought from Taiwan respond. well to fertilizer and insecticides.
The Chinese team in Senegal has 22 members, 10 of them still at Diende. In 1967, three members launched a demonstration near Marsassoum, while at Diaroume nine members began growing rice with water pumped from the Songrougrou River and now are helping the local people to adopt their method on adjoining paddies.
Lee Wu-chao of Taiwan's Yangmingshan administration is leader of the team and Kung Ching-jean of the Taitung District Agricultural Improvement Station is the assistant leader. In 1966 another team began work at Yoro Beri Kunda. It is headed by Lee Ta and the assistant chief is Yang Ju-jung.
The government of Senegal is pressing for expansion and extension of double-crop rice culture. Impressed by the success of the Chinese demonstrations, agricultural leaders of Senegal expect farmers will find it profitable to grow double-crop rice in more valleys of the Casamance where dependable water can be found. Harvests in single-crop valleys and on uplands also can be improved. A number of efforts to implement intensive rice cultivation are going forward. To help in these undertakings, Senegal invited the U.S. Agency for International Development to send a team of Department of Agriculture specialists to the Casamance and members of the team are now beginning work. European Common Market countries are helping to improve salt water rice production in another program.
The Americans, working with Senegalese agricultural and rural development officials and with the Chinese, will help Casamance farmers to develop uplands for greater production of weather-depending crops, as well as shifting to double-crop rice in suitable valleys.
Senegal has also asked the United States to assist in training agricultural personnel in extension techniques so they can give more effective assistance to farmers. Two groups of Senegalese officials visited the United States in 1967, observing farmer cooperatives, agricultural colleges, experiment stations, university extension systems and the operation of government services for farmers.
Additional study teams are expected to go to the United States in the future, sponsored by the Agency for International Development.
Chinese in Gabon have established both an agricultural training center and a model village in the Akok area about 30 miles from the capital of Libreville. Construction was begun last September and completed in January. The model village and adjacent farms total 70 acres. The training center has 7 acres of land for use in field teaching.
Chinese technician (left) teaches machine threshing of rice. (File photo)
The attractive modern houses of the model village are built of aluminum sheeting. Each unit has a living room, two bedrooms, storage room, kitchen and bathroom. There are lavatories and water supply tanks for every four units. Houses have been electrified and furniture is supplied by the Gabonese government.
Fifteen farm families were settled in the model village. Each was given an acre of land for rice, a quarter acre for vegetables and 2½ acres for such upland crops as bananas, maize, ground nuts, cassava and taro, Such sidelines as fish cultivation and livestock and poultry raising have been started.
Farm management combines individualism and cooperation. Each family takes care of its own land. But all families join together in sideline occupations, land reclamation, maintenance of public facilities and machinery, and the processing, transportation and sale of products.
Under terms of the technical cooperation between Gabon and the Republic of China, the Chinese team will administer the village for a year in cooperation with the elected chief and deputy chief.
Within two months of the start of work, the village had vegetables for sale. The average family income from this source is already 12,000 Gabon francs monthly. The first rice harvest was carried out in March with a yield of 4,000 pounds per acre.
The Chinese advisers originally had expected the village to obtain self-sufficiency within a year. This now has been reduced to six months. The average income reached 20,000 francs in only a few months. This exceeds the salary of the average civil servant. Incomes will continue to rise as sidelines are developed and begin to return a profit.
The training center has an enrollment of 20 for each period of four month. A third of the time is spent in the classroom and two-thirds in the field. The students, who are nominated by the Gabon government, will establish other model villages.
Chinese agriculturalists first reached Gabon in 1963. They have established eight agricultural extension centers and reclaimed 420 acres of farmland from the jungle.
Sir Seretse Khama, the President of Botswana, visited the Chinese demonstration farm in his country after learning that the Taiwan specialists harvested their first vegetables a month after arrival.
President Khama and other high-ranking officials had dinner at the Chinese Embassy in Gaberones March 5. Mrs. Poo Teh-chieh, the wife of the Chinese ambassador, presented the wife of the President with carrots and cabbage grown on the farm in just a few weeks' time.
The Botswana chief executive expressed admiration for the team's efficiency and visited the farm a few days later.
Free China's 38 agriculturalists in Sierra Leone have been divided into 10 teams to provide maximum assistance to a country where they have been working for several years. The groups are stationed at Mange, Hastings, Port Loko, Binkolo, Kantobe, Karbala, Kanima, Bo, Mabana and Yemballa.
Three years ago the farmers of Sierra Leone were taught to cultivate rice. Now they are attaining self-sufficiency in the production of vegetables.
Cabbage, onions and tomatoes were successfully planted on an experimental plot near Hastings. This vegetable-producing area now has grown to 40 acres. Another vegetable farm has been established at Karbala, some 200 miles from Hastings.
Vegetable seeds are imported from Taiwan. The farms are located in highland areas and the varieties from subtropical Taiwan do very well. The country may have a surplus of vegetables for export by the end of this year.
Since 1964, a total of 254 Sierra Leone farmers and technicians have been trained by the Chinese mission. Of these, 28 are rice technicians, 43 are vegetable technicians, 89 are rice farmers and 94 are vegetable farmers.
A model village is being established at Mange for some 15 families on a 50-acre plot. Fishery experts surveyed the possibility of establishing an oyster industry and made a report to the government. Assistance also has been given the poultry industry.
Rice production has been increased many times by the team working in Cameroun. Average output has been raised to more than 4,500 pounds per acre with three crops a year. This means an annual harvest of 13,500 pounds a year compared with the former yield of 450 pounds a year from the one crop grown during the rainy season.
The unit yield previously was so low that Cameroun farmers lost interest in rice. Chinese agriculturalists built canals to reach water sources and thus made possible the three crops.
Prior to arrival of the Chinese, vegetables were flown into the country and sold at prices higher than those of meat. Now a score of different vegetables have been introduced from Taiwan. Production is possible in every season and the farmers of Cameroun also have learned to grow them.
Cultivation of soybeans, a highly useful and economic crop, has been introduced. The Cameroun government asked the Chinese mission to train 260 local farmers in the growing and processing of soybeans.
At Nanga Eboko, the Chinese team settled 20 farm families in a model village. Material for the aluminum houses was donated by the Chinese government. The village farming area totals 100 acres.
Thirty-two Cameroun farmers have been trained in three seminars and rice cultivation has been extended to 400 acres. Upland rice plantation is being carried out in the southern part of Cameroun, which is hilly and unsuitable to paddy fields. Subteams are working in Ntui and Bamenda and an extension station has been established in Bafang to provide guidance in the upland cultivation. Some 5,000 families have been resettled in Bafang.
Malagasy farmers have been encouraged to increase rice production as a result of Chinese farm team activities.
After a bumper harvest on a demonstration plot, farmers of the Mangamila area asked for tools and the details of Chinese methods. President Philibert Tsiranana arranged for the Chinese agriculturists to demonstrate rice cultivation at his wife's farm at Itaosy. This four-acre test and another of five acres nearby influenced local farmers to take up Chinese methods. The Malagasy first lady visited the paddy fields on three occasions.
Addressing Congress, President Tsiranana called attention to the Chinese use of Malagasy bamboo instead of costly imported pipe for irrigation and drainage works. "At a time when we need money to build up our country," he said, "this is a very economical and practical."
Two Chinese teams have been working in Malawi - one team in the north and one in the south. Rice raised on 40 demonstration acres in the north yielded between 5,000 and 6,000 pounds per acre.