Ministry of Agriculture of People Republic o : Agricultural ties grow stronger

Updated: 2016-01-08 09:02

By Hou Liqiang in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Zhou Wa in Beijing and Cecily Liu in London (China Daily Africa)

Lessons learned by China in working with African farmers have prepared the ground for new assistance programs

Agricultural cooperation between China and African countries is expected to strengthen as the participants gain experience by working together, experts say.

Many lessons already have been learned and are helping Chinese agronomists and investors adapt to local needs.

Efforts are also expected to get a boost as agriculture is one of the sectors covered by financing from the $60 billion pledge made by President Xi Jinxing in December at the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

Xi said Chinese enterprises would be encouraged to engage in large-scale farming, animal husbandry, and grain storage and processing in the continent to create jobs and improve farmers' earnings.

'China will carry out agricultural development projects in 100 African villages to raise rural living standards, send 30 teams of agricultural experts to Africa, and establish a cooperation mechanism between Chinese and African agricultural research institutes,' he said.

Chinastarted the Chinese Agricultural Demonstration Center program in Africa in 2006 after the FOCAC Beijing Summit. Twenty such centers are operating in Africa.

Experts say these centers have begun to adapt themselves to conditions and develop their own strengths. Meanwhile, more communication between the two sides is needed so that China can better understand the real needs of African countries to maximize the centers' value.

The Chinese agricultural demonstration model is designed to unfold in three three-year stages: planning and construction; operation by Chinese institutions with local people; and African governments or companies taking over with Chinese assistance. After nine years, local people would manage and run the centers themselves. Many of the centers in Africa are in the third stage.

Xu Xiuli, an expert in agricultural aid in Africa with China Agricultural University, says Chinese centers show more 'flexibility' and hence the effectiveness of the aid depends highly on the performance of the grassroot aid experts and staff.

Western countries usually have a rigid- logic framework for the design and implementation of aid projects.

'After years of practice, experts can now identify problems in a project at a demonstration center at an early stage and make adaptations in time to pursue a better result for the project,' she says.

The Chinese centers have been making great efforts to train personnel and promote production, experts say.

Farmers of the China-Ethiopia Agricultural Demonstration Center till the land. Among the center's projects is promotion of drought-tolerant rice so farmers can plant twice a year. Photos by Hou Liqiang / China Daily

The China-Ethiopia Agricultural Demonstration Center, for example, is promoting drought-tolerant rice in Ethiopia so that farmers can plant rice twice a year instead of only once, in the rainy season, according to Chen Weichao, center director.

This year, drought in Ethiopia is expected to decrease crop production by 60 percent, according to media reports. Drought tolerant rice is expected to help reduce the effects of drought in the future.

The corn planting and mulching techniques the center promotes have been utilized by some farmers. Training has been offered to 660 people at the center, 120 more than planned, according to Chen.

The 52-hectare center, completed in April 2012 at a cost of 40 million yuan ($6.2 million), was put into operation in November 2012.

Chen, head of the center for about two years, says despite their efforts a lack of careful advance preparation has resulted in some detours.

Ethiopiahas high expectations for the center to help increase the production of teff, a nutritious, native species of lovegrass similar to millet traditionally used to make injera, a spongy flatbread that is an Ethiopian staple. But while teff production is considered too low, Chen says the center failed to respond to the need in the beginning, Chen says.

The center built a fish-farming training facility, which Chen says was at Ethiopia's request, but they didn't get many trainees - people who live around the center don't eat fish.

'No matter if you're building agricultural demonstration centers or doing anything else, you need to talk with the Ethiopian side as much as possible in the early stage of proposing and designing a plan,' he says.

'We have very professional Chinese experts. They need to know the development situation of Ethiopian agriculture and figure out what Ethiopia needs, and then make a decision on what to do and how to operate. If they (African countries) are not interested, they will not be active (in cooperating with you),' he says.

Chen says he has found, in some cases, that what they were doing failed to attract much participation from the Ethiopian government and they even had to look for trainees themselves, which was not anticipated.

Chen was given a vote of confidence by Peng Dajun, a former coordinator for the Ethiopian government's agricultural, technical and vocational education and training program. Peng has been in Ethiopia since 2001 working in agriculture.

'It was such a big project, however, they (the designers) only thought about what to do from the Chinese side,' Peng says.

'The operators of the agricultural centers are given tasks by the (Chinese) Ministry of Commerce about how many personnel they should train, but they fail to ask what is needed and what they are expected to do,' he says.

Peng says these centers, as isolated projects, often fail to integrate into the projects African countries have. 'Only when your aid is based on projects African countries already have can it work,' he says.

Xu, the expert with China Agricultural University, says she also thinks the centers and African governments 'need more communication with each other. Many well-intentioned support programs have not been well integrated with the African smallholder agricultural system.

'The most important consideration is how to put the real needs of smallholders at the top of those big policies and plans. This is not to suggest that large-scale farming for cash crops and export materials should be stopped or stunted, but it is clear that this single structural track in (large, cash-crop) agriculture is insufficient to earn investment capital for wider state development. It is also clear that food security will not be solved this way and thus rural poverty will persist.'

Jiang Lu, a doctoral candidate in international relations at the London School of Economics who studied China's agricultural demonstration centers in Africa for her thesis, says: 'There is a lot more that can be done to efficiently make use of resources at these centers to help African farmers improve their agricultural work.'

Jiang traveled to Mozambique and South Africa to do her research and says she stayed there long enough to get a good look, making sure they would 'carry on with their business as normal' while she was there.

One of the problems Jiang found with the centers is that many of the farmers who learned new techniques could not implement them because of a lack of appropriate farm equipment.

'What they learn is not very complicated technology. It is quite basic, but the lack of equipment means they may not be able to use it at home,' she says.

Jiang says those centers should spread the training to more technicians, who could play a greater role in facilitating technology transfers, instead of just training farmers.

The Chinese government intends for the centers to be a way for Chinese companies to go global, given that their provision of training enables them to gain local experience. However, she found that many Chinese companies did not have aspirations to go global, but simply used the projects as an opportunity to make money. 'Without commitment to Africa in the long term, they are likely to leave the continent when the training programs end,' she says.

But some of the centers, Jiang says, are taking the initiative to make improvements. For example, a center in South Africa is dividing the training into two steps, with the first focused on crop production and the second on marketing the produce.

In that way, the farmers return to the center months after their initial training and experts can follow up to find out how well they have been able to use the technology, she says.

On the issue of Chinese businesses' sustainable growth in Africa, Jiang says it might be a good idea to set up a second stage where the companies must provide the funds to work in Africa themselves, after the initial stage of receiving money from the Chinese government. This could help motivate the Chinese companies to think more about long-term development.

Peng, now deputy-general manager of CGC Overseas Construction Group Agricultural in Ethiopia, part of a large, state-owned Chinese corporation, has been trying to win the contract to run the China-Ethiopia Agricultural Demonstration Center. Instead of earning a fee from the Chinese government, he would like to change it into a corporate social responsibility project of CGCOC, making full use of his 14-year experience in agricultural aid in Ethiopia.

He says he is confident that he will make it work and help Ethiopia in its agricultural development.