Wu Mingkui shows students how to grow high-yield hybrid rice

It was an exciting moment for the team of Zimbabwean government officials and Chinese experts who had gathered at a demonstration rice plot belonging to Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Agriculture to start an experiment.  

Chinese agricultural expert Wu Mingkui had been preparing for this moment since he arrived in Harare as part of a 10-member team in October 2015 to share modern farming techniques with Zimbabwean farmers. 

He had compiled a textbook in English to teach the theoretical part to local agriculture technicians and at the five-day training session, high-yield Chinese hybrid rice seeds were planted to see if they would provide substantially more rice than the local breed. The success of the experiment would mean contributing to food security in the Southern African state. 

The genesis  

The origin of Wu’s agricultural cooperation project can be traced back to 2006 when Hu Jintao, then President of China, announced a cooperation plan at the First Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit in Beijing. As part of the cooperation plan, Hu said China would build 10 agriculture technology demonstration centers in Africa and send 100 senior experts to train 1,500 local professionals in the following three years. 

Then in 2009, the plan was extended to 20 demonstration centers. China also agreed to send 50 teams to train 2,000 farmers. 

Since 2006, around 300 Chinese agricultural experts, teachers and technicians have been sent to 37 African countries by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. 

Wu and his colleagues, specializing in livestock rearing, crops, farm machines, aquaculture, horticulture and veterinary sciences, are the third batch of experts arriving in Zimbabwe.  

Rice is one of the strategic crops for enhancing food security in Zimbabwe, but Wu found both research and development in growing rice as well as actual productivity very low. "There is 1,000-hectare land under cultivation nationwide but each hectare yields only 0.5 tons," he said. In a pilot hybrid rice field in central China’s Hunan Province, cultivated by Yuan Longping, known in China as the "father of hybrid rice," the average productivity was 12 tons per hectare.  

Wu’s priority was to introduce the Chinese hybrid rice technology into Zimbabwe’s national rice cultivation project. 

In recent times, Zimbabwe is facing a more severe crop challenge due to drought and other effects of climate change. One third of the population - around 4 million people - is in danger of going hungry. 

Wu found many local farmers tended to believe that drought was the biggest threat to crops production and could not be countered since it was a natural phenomenon beyond human control. That gave him an opportunity to show them that there was indeed something that humans could do to counter it.  

"With hybridization techniques, they can cultivate new varieties of rice that are drought and disease-tolerant," he said.  

The Chinese experience 

China began researching how to grow high-yield hybrid rice in the 1960s. The Chinese hybrid rice technology helps feed more than 20 percent of the world’s population using just 7 percent of the world’s total arable land. And now, the Chinese knowhow is being shared with other countries.  

However, Wu found that with crops like corn and soybean, it was the local breeds that had more potential than the Chinese ones. So he felt that the food insecurity in Zimbabwe was not due to the seed quality but lack of technology and equipment. 

"[The trick is to] make sure good seeds and technologies are appropriately used by the small farmers who lack money and management expertise," Wu told ChinAfrica . "That’s why we are here - to give such demonstrations and provide training." 

So far, two rounds of training in rice cultivation technology have been given to students from agricultural colleges and technicians for a national program. According to the two-year plan for Wu and his team, they will teach 800 locals advanced farming and livestock-rearing technologies.   

Keen learners 

Zhang Jianzhong, who has 23 years of work experience as an agro-technician, spent two years in Ethiopia from 2013 to 2015. Then he was home only for five months, after which he embarked on a new journey: to Zimbabwe to bring change there. 

Zhang realized Zimbabwe was one of the advanced African countries in terms of agricultural mechanization, thanks to the technology and equipment left behind by Western farm owners who departed when a land reform started in 2000. 

"But the old equipment was not well maintained and there are no new ones. So there is a serious shortage of machines in agricultural production," Zhang said. 

One way of addressing it is trying to extend the service life of the old equipment by teaching their operators and technicians the correct way to use them as well as repair and maintain them. That is one of Zhang’s jobs, teaching how to operate the machines and care for them. He finds his students in Zimbabwe attentive and eager to learn. 

"They cherish the training opportunity and pay full attention to every detail," Zhang said. 

The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has agreed to provide some new machines - two tractors, two potato planting machines and two peanut planting machines. 

The machines were selected based on two factors: local farmers’ urgent needs and reducing farming costs while increasing efficiency. Without the new machines, it requires at least two oxen and 30 laborers to farm 1 hectare in one day. But with the introduction of the machine, five people can farm more than 1.5 hectares daily. Also, the survival rate of the potato plants would be much higher. 

"While working in Africa, I can deeply feel the people’s desire and need for technological knowledge and skills," Zhang said in conclusion. "So for me, it’s not only a job but a responsibility, both to myself and the people here."