From Barren Earth to Fertile Fields--International Cooperation in Agriculture and Fisheries

In the latter half of the nineties, an age when international cooperation and humanitarian-aid work are increasingly important, quite a few people are still left wondering: Whatever happened to Taiwan's Agricultural Missions of the 1970's that everyone used to hear so much about?

With 47 missions in 33 countries, coordinating projects in agricultural technology, fishing technology and craftwork, the ATMs have been an overwhelming success.

The answer is: There still are some 383 members of International Agricultural Technology Cooperation Missions working in Africa, Central and South America, the Caribbean, the Asia-Pacific, West Asia and other areas, solving food shortage problems by turning barren wastes into fertile fields and increasing the production of rice. Whether releasing artificially bred shrimpfry into the sea or raising endangered varieties of orchids and transplanting them in national parks, the old Agricultural Missions haven't disappeared, they've merely changed their name. Even now, they are working silently in corners of the globe so remote most people have never even heard of them.

According to the 1997 annual report of the United Nations Development and Planning Administration, one quarter of the earth's population is living in extreme poverty, with women, children and the elderly often facing the harshest conditions. The number of malnourished children in the world today is approximately 160 million.

Many underdeveloped countries today are strapping their brains over the issues of rapidly increasing populations and shortages of food. The United Nations estimates that the world's population is around 5.8 billion, and that by 2030, it will increase by another 3 billion. In light of these statistics, the International Food and Agriculture Organization held a "world food supply summit" last November in Rome to address the question of solving the international food crisis.

At the time of the summit, the Executive Yuan Council of Agriculture placed an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune newspaper, announcing to the nations of the world its willingness to offer assistance in the area of agricultural technology. In reality, from 1959 to the present, Taiwan has already accumulated over 12,000 technicians who have worked together with some 68 different countries to improve local standards of living by providing training in agricultural and fishing technology, handicrafts, animal husbandry and medical techniques.

The green revolution

During the 1960s, due to poor harvests of wheat and rice caused by successive years of bad climate, India, Pakistan, Nepal and other South Asian countries saw the worst grain shortages and famines of this century. As a result, these countries put out a call for international emergency aid that was answered immediately by the United States, which transported millions of tons of wheat to the devastated areas. However, a permanent solution to the problem was still required after the crisis abated. Thus, Taiwan, which because of its limited land area and dense population has developed unique intensive rice-farming techniques, stepped forward to play a major role in bringing about a kind of "green revolution."

The key to the green revolution's success in increasing grain production was the development of new varieties of grain. At the time of the famines, Dr. Chang Te-Tzu, presently a special consultant to the Committee of International Technological Cooperation (CITC; the governmental organ which oversees the missions), stood alone in promoting a kind of "fertilizer-efficient," high-yield, short-growth variety of rice known as "Taichong #1." In the past, rice production was focused primarily on tall-growth varieties of rice; the unimpressive-looking short-growth varieties were paid little attention. Dr. Chang, however, discovered that, while not as impressive in appearance as tall-growth rice, short-growth rice possessed a peculiar capacity that could be referred to as "fertilizer-efficiency." That is, application of fertilizer to the plants not only results in a threefold production increase, unlike the tall-growth varieties, fertilizer does not cause the short-growth rice plants to grow so tall as to topple over. Instead, the benefits of the fertilizer are concentrated in the harvestable spike of the plant. Upon this discovery, Taiwan rushed 600 tons of short-growth rice off to India, where it was able to put a stop to the famine before it could wreak further damage.

Rice is the staple food of more than one third of the world's population. Dr. Chang Te-Tzu, building on his experience with Taiwan's short-growth variety of rice, participated in work on the improvement of rice varieties at the International Rice Research Institute. There he successfully bred another fertilizer-efficient, high-yield, early-harvest variety of short-growth rice known as "IR8." The record-high yield produced by IR8 in equatorial climates is upwards of 10.5 tons per hectare, 30% higher than local African rice varieties. Today, IR8 tops the list of high-yield rice varieties, and has become the vanguard of the aquatic rice revolution, sparing the world from the great famines of the sixties. Dr. Chang has pointed out that, of the more than 70 million hectares of the world's land presently occupied by short-growth rice varieties, Taiwan's own short-growth rice genes can be found in 50 million hectares.

The Dominican Republic provides another example of the agricultural technology projects' success in breeding new rice varieties. Because its land and climate are different from other countries in Central and South America, the Dominican Republic is unsuitable for the planting of most normal varieties of rice. However, after ten years of cross-breeding and experimentation, the Agricultural Technology Mission (ATM) there has succeeded in developing a new variety of aquatic rice known as "Huma." As a result, the Dominican Republic's aquatic paddy rice output has increased from an original 1.5 tons per hectare to 5.1 tons per hectare, a production per unit area which ranks eighth in the world. The Dominican Republic has thus gone from being a rice importer to one of world's leading rice exporters.

More than just diplomatic relations

Internationally, economic assistance and cooperative agricultural technology projects began after the end of World War II. Western nations led the way in founding the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to provide assistance to developing countries. During the 1950s and 60s, Taiwan received assistance from the US in the amount of US$1.5 billion. Goods received included flour, soybeans, milk powder and others. Even today, many middle-aged Taiwanese can still recall wearing pants patched with pieces of "Dragonfly" brand flour bags or drinking milk made from American lowfat milk powder. US assistance was a great benefit to Taiwan's early economic stability and development. In addition, at the same time as it was receiving US assistance, Taiwan sent out the ATMs, providing assistance of its own in the area of agricultural technology to African nations that needed it most, including Nigeria, Guinea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Cameroon, Chad and Niger among others.

After the end of World War II, African colonies began to demand independence one after the other. In the year 1960 alone, 17 nations declared independence in rapid succession. To respond to the needs of these newly emergent diplomatic partners, the ROC's Ministry of Foreign Affairs laid out what it referred to as its "Vanguard Program," a plan for international cooperation that called for "diplomacy in the countryside and agriculture overseas." With agricultural technology work as its diplomatic vanguard, Taiwan maintained 100% support in the United Nations from the new African nations in the latter half of the 1960s. Despite the fact that the cooperative technology missions first emerged for diplomatic reasons, the relationships between the missions and the people of the countries they were stationed in quickly transcended the constantly shifting political situation.

Memories from the Kou River

Chang Han-ching, a nearly seventy-year-old former member of an Agricultural Mission who once worked at the Kou River Reclamation recalls that thirty years ago, the Kou River basin in the central African state of Burkina Faso was nothing but barren wilderness- as far as the eye could see there were only bushes, shrubs and groups of monkeys. Today, however, the eye is confronted with the sight of more than 1200 hectares of rice paddies. Other than the difference in the skin color of the farmers in the fields, the scene, with its golden waves of rice, looks like something straight out of a southern Taiwanese farming village. Some 58 people, the third-largest group in the history of the Agricultural Missions, worked at the Kou River site, digging out over ten kilometers of irrigation channels. By turning the barren wilds into fertile fields in only three years, they made it possible for over a thousand farming families to settle down and earn their livelihood from the land. Even though Taiwan and Burkina Faso severed diplomatic ties in 1973, the 1000+ hectares of rice paddies have never ceased supplying their yearly harvest to the people there.

Three years ago, Taiwan and Burkina Faso restored diplomatic relations, and an observation team had the opportunity to return to the Kou River Reclamation. After having been away for more than thirty years, the team was greeted by over 500 people of the farming village upon arrival, singing, dancing and lining the roads to welcome them. Hsieh Sung-ching, Executive Secretary to the CITC, his voice bursting with excitement, commented, "What touched me most was a farmer who gave me an old, faded drawing that he had kept with him for thirty years- that drawing was an original design blueprint for the Kou River Reclamation project."

Today, the new generation of ATMs are beginning another project in Burkina Faso at the Bagre Reclamation, where the environment is even more challenging than that at Kou River. Liu Chun-hsiong, local ATM head as well as leader of the Bagre construction project for two years, explained, "In addition to working in 40 to 50蚓 heat and having to dynamite 6 cubic meter solid rock, 90% of the workers have contracted malaria or dysentery. It's really extremely difficult. But, faced with the needs of the people here, we have to do everything we possibly can."

Working person to person

During his address at the CITC 36th Anniversary Exhibition, Nicaraguan Ambassador to Taiwan Salvador Stadthagen stated that he felt the difference between ordinary economic assistance programs and agricultural technology cooperation was that "technological cooperation is working person to person."

In developing countries, while the number of groups sponsoring international technological cooperation often reaches into the teens, the vast majority of these groups simply donate money or focus on providing consulting-style planning advice. Countries like Taiwan that try to promote new techniques and send abroad large numbers of technicians to work face-to-face with farmers are few and far between.

Although it received assistance from European nations sufficient for carrying out large-scale development with farming machinery, the production of rice at the Dala Reclamation in Guinea-Bissau, Africa was never successful. ATM technician Wu Sheng-sung has since taken up the burden of turning this situation around, working day and night with the farmers of Guinea-Bissau to integrate Taiwan's own intensive farming techniques into their planting work. As a result, Guinea-Bissau's rice production has exceeded its previous total 15 times, and the farming people of Dala have since nicknamed the Dala Reclamation "Wu Village." Similar such stories abound: There is a bronze statue of the ATM leader Li Ta in Gambia, West Africa and a street named "Republic of China Boulevard" at the Acu Reconstruction Site in Guatemala. These tokens and gestures remain behind after the ATMs have turned over projects to local farmers and left the site, paying silent homage to the fruits of their past labors.

From farming to technology

Following the economic development of Taiwan's diplomatic partners, the number of cooperative programs the new Agricultural Technology Missions are involved in has steadily increased. In addition to growing grain and vegetables, the scope of the missions has also come to include animal husbandry work-raising pigs and chickens; marine technology-fishing techniques and the breeding and raising of marine animals; handicraft work-bamboo weaving, wood carving; and such areas of work as flood prevention and water conservation projects among others. Furthermore, different areas of work require different types of technological cooperation projects.

According to Hsieh Shun-ching's analysis, increasing grain production is of chief importance in the African and Southern Pacific regions; raising the overall level of "agricultural-entrepreneurial development" in the agricultural industry is most important in Southeast Asia; for the countries of Central and South America and the Caribbean, the most numerous group, the key to development is crops that possess either high economic value or export potential.

There are several examples of ATM crop/production development in Central and South America. The bitter melon, sponge gourd, calabash and other 'eastern' (i.e. originally brought by the ATMs) vegetables exported by Honduras are presently hot new items on Miami's markets. Nicaragua's 'stud' pig breeding farms, set up with help from an ATM, have not only brought new life to the Nicaraguan livestock industry, they have also provided ample material for the theses of Nicaraguan animal husbandry students. The El Salvadorian ATM uses high-tech methods to artificially spawn shrimp fry, producing more than 10 million each year, thus dramatically decreasing the effects of overfishing on the country's natural shrimp supply. The Costa Rican ATM has provided assistance in growing a seedless variety of ruby-red grape that can already be purchased in supermarkets, and has also succeeded in growing five different species of orchids listed as rare by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), replanting them throughout Costa Rica's national parks.

Business' first forays overseas

The promotion of technological cooperation has not been all smooth sailing. The largest limiting factor involved in any project is the funds of the cooperating countries. Take, for example, the case of serum manufacture for the curing of a pig epidemic in Paraguay. The ATM in Paraguay established a vaccine manufacture lab some twenty years ago at the University of Asuncion. The vaccine produced by the lab not only successfully eliminated Paraguay's widespread pig epidemic, it was also used in neighboring Brazil. The mission has considered handing over the work several times. However, even though Asuncion University already has the proper facilities and technicians, it lacks the capital needed to produce the vaccine on its own. As far as the typical partners for cooperative projects-small-time farmers and fisherman-are concerned, learning new techniques can be often useless without the resources to purchase the necessary materials and equipment to implement them. As a result, after the handover of ATM operations is complete, many local farmers end up right back where they started.

Recently, under the guidance of Agricultural and Fishing Technology Missions, quite a few Taiwanese businesses have begun to look to Central and South America as a place for agricultural and fishing industry investment. Examples include a 3300-square-meter shrimp farm already under construction in El Salvador; new methods for catching tuna presently under research in El Salvador; and the possibility of building butterfly orchid breeding farms in Costa Rica. Taiwan Sugar Corporation, recognizing the benefits of Costa Rica's natural environment, where yearly temperature differences are less than those between night and day, has already entered the final stage of considering whether to begin construction of the orchid farms.

In this way, the technological missions have become an important go-between between Taiwanese business and friendly nations. On the one hand, they provide Taiwanese business with the necessary experience and information for investment; on the other, Taiwanese business' large-scale investment provides cooperating nations with new jobs and advanced technology. This process greatly augments the scope of international technological cooperation. It is, without a doubt, a win-win situation for all parties involved.

Bearing fruit for both sides

In addition to serving the investment needs of Taiwanese businesses, overseas technological missions are also saving up a certain kind of "capital" for Taiwan as a whole. That "capital" is nothing less than the most basic resource for the development of agricultural technology-an abundant source for new plant varieties. The majority of guavas, mangoes, mushrooms, asparagus, and several other fruits and vegetables grown in Taiwan are in fact derived from the cross-breeding of native Taiwanese plants with other non-native varieties.

Over the years, the technological missions have brought back a total of 755 different varieties of plants. Examples like black Belize orchids and Costa Rican seedless ruby-red grapes have already been brought into the country and undergone test planting. As for what is already on the market in Taiwan, the bright red Honolulu queen fruit that people buy and eat here actually originates from Nicaragua. Looking back at the many successes of agricultural cooperation, one could certainly make the observation that, where flowers once only blossomed in faraway countries, today, the sharing of technology has bred acre upon acre of sweet fruit for both Taiwan and its partners.

[Note: As of July 1, 1997, the Committee of International Technological Cooperation will be merged into the International Cooperation and Development Foundation.

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Originally a stretch of desolate waste, today these fields are filled with the fragrant smell of rice. International agricultural technology cooperation is a product of the resources, technology, labor and friendships of human civilization.

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Distribution of ROC Technical Missions

Africa

1. 2. Guinea Bissau

3. 4. Burkina Faso

5. Gambia

6. 7. Central African Rep

8. 9. Swaziland

10. Malawi

11. Senegal

West Asia

12.13.14.15. Saudi Arabia

16. Bahrain

Asia-Pacific

17. Thailand

18. 19. Indonesia

20. Palau

21. Papua New Guinea

22. Solomon Islands

23. Nauru

24. 25. Fiji

26. Tonga

Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea

27. Guatemala

28. Belize

29. El Salvador

30. 31. Honduras

32. Nicaragua

33. 34. 35. Costa Rica

36. 37. Panama

38. Ecuador

39. Paraguay

40. Haiti

41. 42. Dominican Rep.

43. St. Christopher & Nevis

44. Com. of Dominica

45. St. Lucia

46. St. Vincent & the Grenadines

47. Grenada

Source: The Committee of International Technical Cooperation Drawing by Li Su-ling

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With 47 missions in 33 countries, coordinating projects in agricultural technology, fishing technology and craftwork, the ATMs have been an overwhelming success.

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Clearing out dynamited rock to construct irrigation channels. Following the international recognition gained by the Burkina Faso ATM for its work at the Kou River Reclamation, the mission has begun a new project in the extremely challenging environs of the Bagre Reclamation. Once again, it is out to turn barren earth into fertile fields. (courtesy of CITC)

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Dr. Chang Te-Tzu, who is a well-respected research fellow with the national science institutes of five different countries, sparked a "green revolution" with his variety of short-growth rice, helping to end the food crisis of the 1960s.

Clearing out dynamited rock to construct irrigation channels. Following the international recognition gained by the Burkina Faso ATM for its work at the Kou River Reclamation, the mission has begun a new project in the extremely challenging environs of the Bagre Reclamation. Once again, it is out to turn barren earth into fertile fields. （courtesy of CITC）

Dr. Chang Te-Tzu, who is a well-respected research fellow with the national science institutes of five different countries, sparked a "green revolution" with his variety of short-growth rice, helping to end the food crisis of the 1960s.