Empowerment

Chinese agricultural skills help enfranchise Zimbabwean farmers

Chinese veterinary expert Liu Hua was shocked when he heard that a devastating disease had wiped out thousands of Zimbabwe’s pig population. After arriving in the country at the end of October 2015 to take up a post with the Zimbabwe Central Veterinary Laboratory (CVL), Liu got together with his Zimbabwean colleagues to see what could be done to remedy the situation that had struck in May that year.

African swine fever (ASF), a highly contagious hemorrhagic disease affecting pigs, swept across farms in the Mount Darwin area in Mashonaland Central Province in north Zimbabwe. The outbreak lasted for almost six months and spread to nine villages in the region. When the dust had settled, the deadly disease had infected more than 30,600 pigs, killing 4,500, and resulting in significant economic loss for local pig farmers.

While measures were taken on the farms to stem the outbreak, the lack of funding and inadequate pig blood sampling techniques meant a thorough epidemiological investigation of the ASF outbreak could not be conducted in the region.

After considerable effort, in May, Liu was able to secure around $2,000 funding from the Chinese agricultural expert team in Zimbabwe, which Liu is part of, and re-launch the investigation project.

In order to be better prepared for such an outbreak in the future, Liu worked together with other Chinese and Zimbabwean colleagues to train local vets on the basic techniques of epidemiological investigation. This included how to take, store and transport pigs’ blood samples, and use relevant mobile phone applications to facilitate their work.

“The Chinese specialists excel at laboratory work; they are also very good at field blood sampling and epidemical investigation,” said Reverend Moregood Spargo, a Zimbabwean epidemiologist in charge of the ASF epidemiological investigation at the lab. “Future ASF field epidemiological investigations will become easier after our local vets have mastered their blood sampling methods.”

Before coming to Zimbabwe, the 34-year-old spent nine years at Anhui Provincial Center for Animal Disease Control and Prevention in central China.

Liu’s team consists of nine other experts expertised in veterinary sciences, fish farming, livestock rearing, horticulture, crops planting and farm machinery.

Apart from the Chinese expertise and technologies, the team has also brought along new machines, laboratory equipment, veterinary medicines and chemicals worth over $130,000, with the support of the Chinese Government. The China-zimbabwe agricultural cooperation project, in which Liu is a participant, began in 2009. Since then, 35 Chinese agricultural experts have shared modern agriculture practices with local farmers. Liu and his colleagues are the fourth batch of experts working in Zimbabwe in the 2015-17 period.

Apart from Zimbabwe, China has made proactive efforts to help many other African countries improve their agricultural productivity. Since 2006, China’s Ministry of Agriculture has sent over 200 members to more than 30 African countries to train local technicians and provide consulting services.

Agricultural modernization is among the top priorities of the 10 major China-africa cooperation plans for 2016-18. China plans to continue sending teams of agricultural experts to provide vocational education in Africa, in addition to increasing the number of African personnel trained in China, according to the Forum on China-africa Cooperation Johannesburg Action Plan announced last December.