Recently, Xinhua News Agency Bujumbura Newsletter: China Aid Burundi Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center helps Burundi to increase crop yields!
Country profile of Burundi
So, where is this Burundi and what kind of country is it?
Burundi is located south of the equator in East Africa, at latitudes 2°20′~4°27′ and longitudes 28°50′-30°53′E.
The border is triangular, hidden in the deep mountains and old forests of the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, sandwiched between the hilly country of Rwanda and the two big brothers, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (KINC) and Tanzania, which is the watershed of the Congo and Nile rivers.
In the 16th century, a feudal kingdom was established in Burundi, where the Tutsis established their rule over the local Hutu peasants.
In the mid-17th century, the Kingdom of Burundi began to expand outward, and by the first half of the 19th century, King Entar Rugamba had unified the Burundi region and occupied some areas in present-day southern Rwanda and western Tanzania. Today, the Burundian drum symbolizes the legitimacy of the old Burundian royal family and the continuation of the country.
Burundi is made up of four ethnic groups: Hutus (80.9 per cent), Tutsi (15.6 per cent), Lingola (1.6 per cent) and Teva (1 per cent). This abnormal social structure in which ethnic minorities occupy high positions sows the evil seeds of national instability. It reached its peak in October 1993.
Melgio Ndaydaye, who had only been in office for four months and who had been Burundi's first ever Hutu head of state and the first democratically elected president, was assassinated by the Tutsi-controlled military. This ensued the shocking "Rwandan genocide" in the history of Burundi and neighboring Rwanda. It was only in 2006 that the entire country of Burundi was back on track.
Burundi has many plateaus and mountains, most of which is composed of plateaus on the east side of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa, with an average altitude of 1600 meters in the country, known as the "mountain country" and the reputation of "the heart of Africa". The Mother River, the Ruchichi River, winds west and empties into Lake Tanganyika.
The terrain of the mountainous plateau is rich in mineral deposits, mainly nickel, peat, cerium, tantalum, tin and so on. Nickel deposits of about 300 million tons, taste of 1.5%. Peat reserves are about 500 million tons. Phosphate reserves of 30.5 million tons, taste 11.1-12.6%. Limestone reserves of 2 million tons. Gold ore is widely distributed, and the northwest reserves are larger.
Mineral abundance is meant to represent abundance, but in modern times it heralds disaster. In the second half of the 19th century, Western colonial expansion intensified, sweeping the world, and the kingdom of Burundi, which had resisted the invasion of Arab merchants and Turkish troops, was finally conquered by the guns of Western colonists and became a German East African territory.
After World War I, the League of Nations assigned the then kingdom of Burundi to Belgium, which indirectly fostered puppet royalty to rule the region. It was not until the end of the Second World War that the Kingdom of Burundi became part of the United Nations Trust Territory, entrusted to Belgium, and in 1959, under belgian operation, the Kingdom of Burundi was divided into two countries, Rwanda and Burundi.
After the division of the country, the originally oppressed Hutu people in Rwanda suddenly turned into masters, and the Tutsi, who had been given high status by the colonial government, fell into the dust. On the Burundian side, Prince Louis Roisgasol of the Tuvans created the Progressive National Unity Party, the eldest son of Mwambuza IV of the Kingdom of Burundi, representing the interests of the Tutsi.
This eventually led to the tragedy of the "Rwanda Massacre".
After the tragedy of the holocaust, Rwanda matured, no longer distinguished between ethnic groups, and was collectively referred to as Rwandans, and rwanda's economic growth rate is now among the best in Africa.
However, due to the massacre, Burundi's self-severed roots, the corruption of the government and the control of the army, the bloodshed of ethnic contradictions, coupled with the pursuit of Western neoliberal capitalism, the market has been shrinking, becoming one of the world's least developed countries.
Fortunately, Burundi has not continued to fall like Haiti. The leaders of The Republic of Burundi took the initiative to invite China to help with the development plan, and actively issued the National Development Plan (2018-2027), which aims to point out the direction for the economic and social development of the country in the next 10 years and strive to achieve 10.7% economic growth by 2027.
China has helped Burundi to eat enough
In August 2009, within the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China began to implement a technical cooperation project for senior agricultural experts in Burundi, which guided 22 villages in Burundi's 14 rice-growing provinces and provided techniques and guidelines for rice farmers.
"It's a great project."
In September 2018, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion of the China-aided construction of the Burundi Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center was held at the project site in Bubanza Province, northwestern Bura. During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, President Ndayesmiye of Burundi highly praised the project of the Agricultural Demonstration Centre for Burundi.
Food is a vital part of the population, and ensuring food security is the foundation of Burundi's national development and one of Burundi's most pressing needs. China and Burundi have cooperated in the field of agriculture for many years, with remarkable results. With the help of a number of Chinese agricultural experts, Chinese hybrid rice technology has helped Budodi achieve high yields of rice.
The project of the Agricultural Demonstration Center for Burundi covers a total area of 12.5 hectares and a total construction area of about 3430 square meters, which can meet the office, training and living needs of the trainees and managers of the center at the same time, and has an office living area, a planting demonstration area, a breeding demonstration area and an agricultural product processing area.
The construction of the Agricultural Demonstration Center for Burundi is based on the standards of the Chinese Agricultural Demonstration Center, which "teaches people to fish" to promote China's advanced agricultural technology and promote the increase of agricultural product production and income in Burundi.
Today, China has trained 49 trainees for Burundi to train more than 1,500 farmers in rice cultivation, and has also trained dozens of agricultural experts for the Burundi ministry of environment, agriculture and animal husbandry. Up to now, China has sent a total of 5 batches of 45 people to Burundi to carry out agricultural technical assistance missions to support the country's poverty reduction cause and achieve food security goals.
In recent years, the Chinese Agricultural Expert Group has innovated the mode of productive input fund, attached importance to the cultivation of agricultural talents in Burundi, and successfully implemented the hybrid rice poverty reduction demonstration village project in Linge 4 Village, Jihanga County, Bubanza Province, to help the entire village get rid of absolute poverty.
Yang Huade, head of the China-aided Burundi agricultural expert group, said in an interview with the local government:
After seven years of in-depth field and village expeditions, demonstrations and on-site training, the group successfully increased Burundi's rice production from an average of 3 tons per hectare to 10 tons, achieving a leap forward. The Burundian Agricultural Demonstration Centre is now able to produce hybrid rice seeds autonomously, "(Burundi) is likely to establish a seed centre in the near future to produce qualified seeds and even export them to other countries." ”
While Western countries have brought war, destruction and poverty to Burundi, China has brought food, clothing, peace and development to Burundi.
China's help to Burundi to increase crop yields and feed everyone in Burundi shows that China's concept of a "community with a shared future for mankind" is not just talking, not just wanting to engage in ideological "a certain economic framework", but really helping the vast number of developing countries in the third world to promote development and seek happiness.