Farming Empowerment
By Liu Jian
Chinese horticulture expert Zhou Cheng gives local farmers advice on growing vegetables 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.”
Chinese expertise
This is just one of the many achievements Liu has made during his time in Zimbabwe.
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.
Teaching effectively
While working at CVL in Zimbabwe, Liu noted that apart from daily work, experts have to teach college interns making experiments, which can be timeconsuming. He decided to use technology to speed up the process.
“If we shoot a demonstration video on the experiment, those interns can watch and learn the basic techniques, and they can watch it repeatedly when they fail to remember or understand,” said Liu.
In May, Liu shot one demonstration video on avian influenza virus antibody test, which has been well received.
Chinese veterinary expert Liu Hua demonstrates how to do the avian influenza virus antibody test
Chinese veterinary expert Li Dongsheng demonstrates how to use the milk analyzer “This may be the first demonstration video about veterinary laboratory experiment in Zimbabwe,” said Tshabalala Priscilla, a technologist of the Virology Section at the CVL.
“There used to be many experts like Liu who taught us how to do experiments, but no one shot a video for us before,” said technician Musasa Chiedzo Paulin. “He is outstanding.”
With limited resources for training, video can save time and money. “University teachers can also use video to demonstrate to students how to do the experiment, and this will benefit more people,” Liu added.
Cooperation prospects
While sharing agricultural knowledge and technologies, the Chinese experts have also done a lot of research work on the problems hampering Zimbabwe’s agricultural development, and contributed their ideas of solution.
Li Dongsheng, a 57-year-old livestock expert and the leader of the Chinese expert team to Zimbabwe, works in the Livestock Production and Development Division under Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanization and Irrigation Development (MAMID). He believes the animal husbandry industry in Zimbabwe has great potential.
“For example, the country needs about 120 million liters of milk a year to meet demands, but last year’s milk yield was only 57 million liters,” he said.
Li said local dairy farmers milk by hand, which is time-consuming and inefficient. According to him, the efficiency can be increased up to eight-fold if they start using mobile milking machines. Liu said the 10 milking machines donated by China will play a major role in this regard.
The 47-year-old horticulture expert Zhou Cheng works at the Plant Protection Research Institute under MAMID. He explains that in recent years, Zimbabwe has seen more severe crop problems due to drought and climate change.
“If China can help Zimbabwe better develop its water conservancy and irrigation projects, the agriculture sector will have bigger potential,” he told ChinAfrica.
Horticulture has high irrigation needs, but most of the small family farms in Zimbabwe lack the irrigation equipment, technology and management expertise, explains Zhou. The unstable power supply in the region is also hampering the development of an adequate irrigation system.
“I suggest Zimbabwe make use of its rich solar energy and develop a solar-powered irrigation system,” Zhou said, adding that China’s water-saving irrigation equipment and technology can also help in this area. CA