Vietnamese Farmers Show the Way
Led by Prof. Vo Tong Xuan, Vietnamese farming
experts, who went to Sierra Leone one year ago to try out 50
high-productivity Mekong Delta rice breeds in a town called Mange
Bureh, in order to determine which breeds will grow best on a
100-hectare project sponsored by the Sierra Leone government,
have met with a huge success. The experts have successfully grown
two paddy crops a year, with a yield of four tons per hectare for
each crop, he said. Local farmers in Sierra Leone usually only
grow one crop each year, with a productivity of one ton per
hectare.
The biggest achievement gained in the project is to help
local farmers overcome the shortage of machinery and a poor
irrigation system, as well as to reserve three tons of rice seeds
for a large-scale farming in the upcoming crop. It is a dream
that has never come true to international experts, despite their
huge investments. With three tons of seed rice, harvested from
the most recent crops, and in store for the next crop, Dr. Vo
Tong Xuan expects a significant improvement in productivity of
the next crop.
In a recent interview with Vietnam's {Lao Dong} (The Labor)
newspaper, Professor Vo said that during his visit to Japan in
2006, he met with the Sierra Leone agriculture minister, who
asked him to cooperate with his country's agriculture sector. "I
saw that Sierra Leone's climatic conditions were the same as
Vietnam's, and accepted the proposal because I believed that the
cultivation techniques of Vietnamese farmers in the Cuu Long
Delta region could be applied in Sierra Leone."
When asked why he undertook this challenge, the Los Banos
based IRRI-trained Professor said: "First of all, I want to
improve the hard lives of farmers." He also pointed out that in
the past, European countries and the U.S. sent experts to Africa
to help eradicate hunger and poverty. "Many projects costing
billions of U.S. dollars failed. The reasons were many. But I
think the major reason was that the transfer of technology was
mismanaged."
Prof. Vo Tong Xuan told the interviewer that Vietnam will
send more farmers to Sierra Leone and other parts of Africa where
the conditions are similar to that of Vietnam to raise rice
productivity.
|