Sharing experiences

Terence Nobus Butoyi, Director General and President of Imbo Regional Social Development Association (RSDA), has visited China once. During his trip, he heard that super hybrid rice cultivated by Yuan Longping - known as “the father of Chinese hybrid rice” - was able to yield an output of 15 tons per hectare.

Last August, he attended a session of agricultural technology training held by the expert team in Imbo, and visited their base of rice seedlings. Having seen for himself the impressive results of Chinese seedling technology and the undeniable advantages of hybrid rice and super rice, he became even more determined to learn from China.

“I very much look forward to working with the expert team to promote the dry rice seedling technique and hybrid rice,” Butoyi said. “I hope that the officials and technicians of Imbo Regional Association will be able to teach our farmers about what they have learned here, and organize farmers to visit the base.”

This was the third session of training since the expert team arrived in Burundi. The training was held at RSDA with a total of 189 participants, most of whom were key agricultural technicians and officials of Burundi, who would then teach farmers what they have learned. In order to meet local expectations, the expert team had been working with the staff of Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock on the training, which included classroom teaching as well as on-site visits and exchanges.

Dodiko pointed out that with China’s help, Burundi’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock will focus on developing hybrid rice and promoting advanced cultivation technique in several of the country’s provinces, in order to ensure that rice production is at the heart of Burundi’s agricultural development strategy in the future. “I appreciate the elaborate training given by Chinese experts, and I believe this is the most successful training in the history of our ministry,” Dodiko said.

Increasing rice output is merely one of the many aspects of China-burundi agricultural cooperation. China had already sent expert teams to investigate the wetland of the Nyamuswaga River Valley, to offer farming cooperation in Randa Farm in Bubanza, and to improve the Rukaramu reclamation area.

Since the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Forum on China-africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2009, China has sent three senior agricultural expert teams to offer assistance in areas of Burundi’s agricultural macro-development, and demonstration and introduction of key techniques.

According to Lu, cooperation between the two countries is set to pick up pace following the FOCAC Summit in 2015, with the planned opening of a Sino-burundian agricultural technology demonstration center in 2017. Comments to lixiaoyu@chinafrica.cn