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PrintRice, hamburgers in 'virtuous circle'
In Southern China near the border with Burma, a 'fast food' approach to sharing innovation in agriculture is proving to be the 'one good thing that leads to another'. By Mark Deasey, Asia Region Manager
Terracing in Ankang township used for erosion control and wet rice cultivation. Photo: Mark Deasey/OxfamAUS
Talk of 'hamburger technology' sounds a bit out of place in Mu Ga, a township in a remote corner of Yunnan province, up against China's border with Burma. You won't find a fast food franchise closer than the provincial capital Kunming - three days away by road through the countless folds of mountains. And for most of each year, the Lahu minority people here traditionally have little to do with the cash economy.
What the originator of 'hamburger technology' had in mind was not beef patties and chemically treated lettuce but speed and simplicity. This involves teaching local people a radically simple technique to increase their rice yields by 10 per cent or more at no additional cost, with no extra labour and using far fewer chemical inputs than usual.
Radically simple local solution
'Hamburger technology' is local, having been invented by local Professor Zhu Youyong of Yunnan Agricultural University's Department of Plant Pathology. He discovered that when two different but widely available varieties of rice are planted in alternate, metre-wide strips in the same field, plant damage from insect infestation and disease is dramatically reduced. Field management practices are otherwise quite unchanged - there's no extra work for the women who traditionally do the bulk of transplanting and weeding.
Trials of this method of planting in Mu Ga and elsewhere in Yunnan showed immediate results. Farmers' yields were boosted by 10 per cent and more in the first growing season without any need for expensive hybrid seeds, and a radical reduction in the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers such hybrids often rely on.
Oxfam Australia is supporting staff from the local agriculture office to be trained in the new rice growing technique. These local staff are now going out and running 'hamburger technology' training sessions with the farmers who'll be using it.
The 'virtuous circle'
Increasing rice productivity has been a starting point from which, over time, a 'virtuous circle' has developed: one good change leading to another and another. This is creating integrated and sustainable changes to agricultural practice with interlinked and extremely positive economic, environmental and social outcome.
For example, the village had previously been without proper sanitation, so Oxfam Australia provided funds for four shared toilet blocks. Gastro-intestinal disease has now been considerably reduced - a social benefit. Teams take turns to shovel out the waste, a valuable, cost-free fertiliser and soil conditioner, onto the surrounding vegetable and canola fields - an environmental benefit.
We also provided seed and basic training for these new vegetable and canola crops, and funded the building of a low-tech mill run by the village people to press the canola seed for oil. Sale of this oil provides important cash income for the community.
Continuing this virtuous circle: waste from the Canola pressing process is fed to pigs. Families purchase piglets with small loans, and a team of locals has been trained in vaccination and treatment of common swine diseases.
Survival rate for these piglets is exceptional: over 90 per cent, and sale of the grown pigs is another key source of cash income. Cash income from Canola oil and pig sales is shared among the growers and mill operators. Families get to keep their own profits which pay for food, medical care and education.
Small gains make a big difference
Individual landholdings in Mu Ga are tiny. The local measurement is in mu, with 17 mu to the hectare. A relatively prosperous family might have five mu to farm (0.29 hectares, 0.73 acres). Such a small land holding comprises a number of tiny patches each painstakingly terraced out of dizzyingly steep mountain slopes.
'Hamburger technology' has introduced innovations leading to an increased value of crop yield of about 100 renminbi (about $A23) per mu of land, through increased production and decreased costs. In a place where a 'well-off' family might have a cash income of $200 per year, this increase (of about $115) is serious money. Villagers here could previously grow only enough staple food to meet their needs for three to five months of the year. Now they are harvesting enough for nine months and subsidiary crops are bringing in cash to cover the remaining lean months.
Oxfam Australia's support of rice growing and other innovations has already had far reaching effects in Mu Ga and adjacent areas of South West China. Life here continues to be constant hard work. But thanks to 'hamburger technology' this hard work now drives a virtuous circle of improved nutrition, health, income and environmental sustainability and spins-off real social and cultural benefits for the whole community.
Funding for this project comes from AusAID, Oxfam Australia Core funds and from Oxfam Hong Kong (which manages the Oxfams' Program in China).
- Find out more about our work in China
- www.oxfam.org.au/world/asia/china
- Find out more about Oxfam Hong Kong
- www.oxfam.org.hk/
- Find out more about AusAid
- www.ausaid.gov.au/