The summer heat in Burundi, Africa, is unbearable, but the locals are hunched over in the golden rice paddies.
After wiping the beads of sweat from their foreheads with their hands, the locals handed the water around them to the Chinese experts, and then wrapped their arms around them with their own large hands, calling each other brothers and brothers, laughing at each other, smiling sincerely and without falsehood.
African locals and Chinese experts looked at the stooped and bowed ears of rice together, felt the autumn breeze blowing on their faces, and couldn't help but burst into tears - Lou Tingyuanna's rice ears actually appeared in Burundi, which the British called "absolute wasteland", and together they broke the curse of Burundi's "no grain production for ten thousand years"!
When Burundians hold rice with white flowers in their hands, the British media can't help but exclaim: Chinese is too powerful!
Yes, Chinese be proud of food:
In 2020, China solved the problem of food and clothing for 1.4 billion people, more than 700 million people were lifted out of absolute poverty, the incidence of poverty fell by 94.4 percentage points, and fully entered a well-off society, which can be called a miracle in the history of human poverty reduction.
China has not only solved the problem of food and clothing at home, but also tightly held the hands of its African brothers and extricated themselves from poverty together.
So, what is the state of agricultural production in Burundi? How did the Chinese experts, known as the "watchmen of the rice fields," break the curse of "not producing grain for ten thousand years"?
(Chinese experts and Burundian locals)
First, the hungry Burundians, the Chinese experts who resolutely rushed to the scene
Africa has rich mineral resources, as well as rich agricultural resources, and has great potential for development.
However, due to the lack of political stability, the long-term economic blockade of the Western powers, the economic development of Africa has been curbed, infrastructure construction is lagging behind, and the level of agricultural development is very backward, and most countries cannot provide for food for a long time.
As a result, Africa has long been a priority for global agricultural assistance.
From 2014 to 2015, African countries imported about 600 million tons of grain, and in 2016, Africa produced about 160 million tons of grain, and the output plus imports, Africa's per capita food share is about 220 kg per year.
At present, unpaid food aid accounts for about 10 per cent of Africa's food imports, and without a fundamental technological revolution, Africa's food imports could expand further in the future.
The Agriculture Outlook released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations shows that sub-Saharan Africa will import nearly 25% of food by 2024, and ranks Burundi, which is located in East Africa, as one of the least developed countries.
(Burundian children)
In 2008, the amount of rice per capita in Burundi was less than 5 kilograms, and rice was seen as a luxury in the eyes of the locals.
Burundi covers an area of about 23,500 square kilometers of agricultural land. With small-scale farming as the mainstay, the level of technology and mechanization is low, and the infrastructure such as irrigation is backward.
Due to limited technology and irrigation projects, local rice cultivation relies almost entirely on natural precipitation, that is, "watching the sky to eat", and if there is rain, it can barely make ends meet, and if there is no rain, it will wait for rain.
Walking on the streets of Burundi, some hungry locals are lying on the ground, blocking the harsh sunlight with their palms, so hungry that they dare to drink a sip of water to fill their stomachs.
As a result of years of drought, burundi's groundwater level continues to decline, thousands of wells dry up, crop failures and livestock deaths are no longer news, and starvation is commonplace.
In 2008, hundreds of ordinary people in Burundi's Bubanza province were starved to death, and the local people were left to eat leaves and insects. The outbreak of famine has forced many people in South Sudan to flee to neighboring countries such as Congo and Tanzania.
(Burundian refugees)
For a long time, most of the locals have resigned themselves to hunger, with the poor sitting in the area waiting to die, and the rich emigrating to other countries.
These "waiting to be fed" Burundians do not believe that the land beneath their feet can grow food, and they call their farmland "10,000 years of wasteland".
Food shortages do not only bring hunger, but also a sharp decline in local public health. Fourteen of the 17 provincial-level administrative regions have exceeded the 15 per cent emergency cordon and face acute malnutrition.
In Ngozi, which was hardest hit by the famine, food was used as a "weapon", and locals blocked roads and forced passers-by to use food as "tolls".
Locals sometimes even deliberately intercept aid vehicles, kill aid workers, and block UN food aid, which makes it difficult for humanitarian aid to help areas suffering from famine.
(Burundian)
Civilians trapped in hunger have lost all means of subsistence, have been displaced and reduced to refugees, and have survived entirely on external assistance. Many countries have sent agricultural experts to support local agricultural construction, but they have all died without any problems.
Despite successive defeats, in 2009, the Chinese government resolutely sent a high-level group of agricultural experts to Burundi to provide agricultural assistance.
The British media teased that Chinese was going to be arrogant again, but don't punch yourself in the face.
Now, 13 years after China's assistance to Burundi, the former "10,000-year wasteland" has long been covered with golden ears of rice, which has slapped the British media hard. So, how exactly did Chinese experts do it?
Second, it is better to teach people to fish than to teach people to fish: golden ears of rice grow on the wasteland for ten thousand years
After the Chinese agricultural experts arrived in Burundi, they pointed out that "it is better to teach people to fish than to teach people to fish", and it is not enough to send grain alone, so that the local people can grow grain and love to grow food.
(Chinese experts in rice paddies)
In order to make the locals abandon the mentality of "lying flat", Chinese experts have made a proposal to the Chinese government: a certain number of Chinese teachers are selected to teach at the Burundi Vocational College every year, and use knowledge to influence the locals and let them feel the power of knowledge.
By 2021, the project has been implemented for 61 phases, and China has dispatched a total of 235 agricultural teachers, taught 36 courses in 6 colleges and universities in Burundi, taught more than 45 kinds of practical advanced technologies, and trained more than 3,000 local teachers, students and agricultural technicians, making great contributions to Burundi's agricultural development.
When they first arrived in Burundi, the Chinese Agricultural Vocational Education Group decided to do a big thing - they wanted to write the first set of agricultural teaching materials for Burundi.
Since 2010, the Agricultural Vocational Education Group has completed the compilation and publication of 7 series of agricultural vocational education textbooks in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Vocational Institute of Burundi.
The publication of the teaching materials is of great significance, directly filling the historical gap of the educational materials for agricultural vocational education in Burundi.
(Golden ears of rice)
Burundians refer to the publication of textbooks as a "milestone" chronicle, and local media refer to Chinese experts as "aiders of the mysterious East." On the day of the publication of the textbook, Burundians and Chinese experts sang and danced and drank.
However, it is not enough to have theoretical knowledge in textbooks, after all, practice produces true knowledge.
In order to make the Burundians feel comfortable growing crops, the teachers of the Agricultural Vocational Education Group have completed nearly 300 modules of agricultural practice teaching with high quality, accumulating 10,000 class hours.
The teaching content involves more than 10 majors such as crop cultivation, rice production, irrigation techniques, etc., and the content is rich, and the Burundian students who listen to the lectures all worship Chinese teachers.
According to a teacher who supports the local area, the school leaders, teachers and students who are connected with the project, and even the surrounding farmers are becoming more and more proactive, more and more diligent, and their style is becoming more and more like Chinese.
(Burundians holding hybrid rice)
However, with the teaching materials and practical teaching, the local people were still confused in the face of the wasteland in front of them, and they did not know how to start.
In response to this problem, the Chinese expert group and the agricultural vocational education group decided to "apply both soft and hard".
In the "soft" aspect, Chinese experts personally worked in the field and wrote more than 30 copies of proposals;
In 2019, with the help of the Ministry of Agriculture of Burundi, the Chinese expert group successfully applied to the Burundian government for two patents for rice sowers and rice transplanters, breaking the embarrassing situation of "zero" agricultural patents in Burundi.
On the "hard" side, the Chinese expert group has held a total of 8 training and exchange activities for Burundian agricultural officials to come to China, and recommended 11 officials and teachers to study for master's and doctoral degrees at China Agricultural University.
Many senior agricultural officials in important positions have become "China masters", they know China, youhua, pro-China, and praise China's agricultural development experience.
(Burundian children standing in a bumper rice field)
These "China Tong" who have returned from their studies have worked with Chinese experts to carry out practical exploration of rice planting in the local area, and formulate poverty alleviation programs for local people in accordance with the experience model of "one village and one product".
In Linge, Jihangjia County, Bubanza Province, Burundi, Chinese experts measured every inch of land with their feet, personally selected seedlings, helped 134 local farmers to increase production and income, harvested nearly 9 tons of rice per hectare of land, and increased the per capita share of rice from 290 kilograms to 980 kilograms, truly realizing the goal of "aiding a project, developing an industry, and enriching the people".
Watching the mature rice gradually grow on the "10,000-year-old wasteland" and looking at the Chinese friends who came to help each other from thousands of miles, the Burundians burst into tears, saying that Chinese were real friends.
From 2017 to 2019, all members of the Agricultural Vocational Education Group won the "Outstanding Contribution Award" issued by the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of State of Burundi.
Ms. Xiaoyan Liang, World Bank's Chief Education Specialist, said: "China's Agricultural Vocational Education Project has made a landmark contribution to the development of agricultural vocational education in Burundi and even Africa. ”
(Working together in a rice field)
Even the always arrogant British media can't help but praise: Chinese is too powerful!
In addition to growing golden rice, the Chinese team of experts has also cultivated the local area and played an important role in solving food security, personally doing many things.
In the case of the planting industry, Chinese experts have planted a total of 90 demonstration plots, in addition to rice, wheat, barley, Taiwan bran, millet, sweet potatoes, potatoes, sorghum, beans and other food and cash crops and a variety of vegetables.
In order to improve the planting efficiency of the locals, Chinese experts have also brought mechanized planting to the local area - micro-cultivator farming demonstration, threshing machine installation and commissioning, pump maintenance, manual noodle processing demonstration... Chinese experts have almost become the "treasure chest" of the locals.
With the unremitting efforts of Chinese experts, the "Ten Thousand Years Wasteland" has been completely conquered!
After harvesting the rice with white flowers, Chinese experts not only improved Burundi's agricultural production capacity, but also brought more vitality to the local economy and production activities " by "taking the noodles to the point".
Third, with the point with the surface: the front of the tube after the tube food and clothing
After growing grain on Burundi's "10,000-year-old wasteland", Chinese experts have made frequent moves to try to make the locals "never worry about food and clothing".
(Chinese experts try to solve the problem of local food and clothing)
In the case of water conservancy, Chinese experts have guided the construction of small dams and channels, guided the irrigation of rice paddies, and taught locals the concept of "soil and water conservation".
This proposal was taken as a guideline by local experts, who contacted the local government to carry out surveys and designs to keep the rice fields alive.
As far as agricultural infrastructure construction is concerned, China assisted Burundi in building the first highway since the establishment of diplomatic relations, which is an important 293-kilometer road connecting three agricultural areas.
Along the highway, China has funded the drilling of at least 27 wells and provided drinking water to more than 250,000 people.
In the year the road was completed, the Chinese government proposed plans to establish a large agricultural technology demonstration center and provided Burundi with an interest-free loan of $320 million to help burundi build a diesel power generation system with cables throughout the towns of Ethiopia's eight provinces.
Chinese experts have also put forward ideas for the development of animal husbandry in response to Burundi's mountainous environment.
(Burundi)
In 2013, the Chinese Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medical Team entered The Makamba province of Burundi to organize pharmaceutical research and laboratory training in the local area.
Members of the medical team conducted experiments on herbal and mineral medicines and developed 22 livestock medicines, helping to solve the pest problem in the local area.
Now that the road has been repaired, the cables have been paved, and the animal husbandry industry is ready to go, Chinese companies have begun to enter Burundi to bring GDP to the local area.
In Burundi, The China Overseas Agriculture Corporation fired the first shot at Chinese enterprises investing in Burundi, which fully exploited the local livestock resources and carried out one-stop development of fattening, slaughtering and deep processing.
In 2014, Zhongdi Overseas Agriculture Company signed a memorandum of understanding with Burundi on cooperation in livestock and fishery production capacity, which radiated to Congo, Tanzania and other countries, bringing a lot of revenue to the local government.
Chinese banks also regard Burundi as a country of good credit, financing Burundi's rural power distribution system, rural telecommunications and rural energy production.
According to Chinese customs statistics, the bilateral trade volume between China and Egypt in 2014 was 2.877 billion US dollars. China has become Burundi's largest trading partner.
(Rice paddies in Burundi)
Just when everything was positive, a sudden drought and flood hit fragile Burundi.
In 2015, El Niño struck much of Africa, including Burundi, resulting in food harvest failures and a lack of rain in pastoral areas.
The rising rate of illness and death among locals and the urgency of the Chinese government prompted the opening of the Burundi-Djibouti railway in November 2015, and the first train transported more than 3,000 tons of grain from Djibouti to Burundi, greatly alleviating the local food crisis.
The following year, as nearly 1 million children in eastern and southern Africa suffered severe malnutrition from the worst drought in 30 years, China again provided emergency food aid to Burundi at a total of 10,535 tons, worth a total of 50 million yuan.
In April 2020, the Burundian government said that nearly 1 million Burundians had been affected by the invasion of desert locusts and needed urgent food assistance, and in June the Chinese government specifically studied and formulated a technical plan for the prevention and control of locusts in Burundi to help Burundi tide over the crisis.
China is helping Burundi thousands of miles away, but without asking for anything in return, leading burundians to get rid of hunger step by step, which can be described as a big country!
Epilogue:
In the more than 40 years of reform and opening up, China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty and achieved a historic leap from low-income countries to high-income countries.
In particular, since 2008, the Chinese government has set up a trust fund at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and donated US$130 million to support the United Nations in achieving the Special Plan for Food Security, which shows that China is a responsible country that has taken the initiative to assume international responsibilities and has the courage to take responsibility.
Agricultural support in countries such as China and Burundi is more "learning in the middle of the work", which is very different from the "unspoken rules" of aid in the West that "secretly demand returns".
China's aid has truly achieved "people-to-people bonds."
China is concerned about the development of agriculture in developing countries, benefiting local farmers and winning "people-to-people bonds" by helping to "improve people's livelihood".
Chinese experts and technicians insist on going down to the grass-roots level, inserting a pole into the field, going deep into the front line of agricultural production, and eating, living and working with the peasants of the recipient countries.
While promoting agricultural technology, they also brought sincerity and friendship to Burundi.
Burundian farmers praised Chinese for their "hard work", "friendliness" and "no concealment of technology", naming agricultural machinery after Chinese expert technicians, truly realizing "people-to-people communication".
Resources:
"Adaptation of Different Rice Varieties in Burundi" Liu Kaiqiang Southern Journal of Agricultural Sciences
"Economic Profile of Burundi" Xing Houyuan International Economic Cooperation
"Basic Types of Soils in Burundi and Their Improved Utilization", Shi Dajin, Maize Research Institute, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences
"Development Status of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Burundi" Wang Yunming Freshwater Fisheries Research Center
"Analysis on the Sustainable Development of The Technical Assistance Project of Senior Agricultural Experts from China to Burundi" Fu Yan International Exchange Service Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs
"The President of Burundi Presents Honorary Certificate to the Leader of the Agricultural Expert Group of China's Aid to Burundi" China Overseas Chinese Network
"China-Africa Agricultural Cooperation: Assisting a Project to Develop an Industry to Enrich the People" Xiaoxiang Morning Post