Shi Guangyin is 59 years old, married, has four children and lives in Sidahao village, Haiziliang Township in Dingbian County in China's north-west Shanxi province. Over the past 40 years, Mr Shi has successfully fought back the Maowusu desert that once made farming extremely difficult in Dingbian. He has controlled 13 000 hectares of sandy land by planting a 50-km protection belt of trees and shrubs. In 1986, he set up China's first such desert controlling company in partnership with other farmers. About 300 households are now taking part in the desert control operation and more than 60 percent of former desert land is now covered with trees and shrubs with an estimated commercial value of about USD$4 million.
Mr Shi's efforts have brought prosperity to one of the country's poorest regions. Wheat yields have gone up by as much as 40 times in his village and all families have new houses. Sidahao has become a model for other areas in Dingbian that still remain below the national poverty line. His company has an annual gross income of about US$130 000 and fixed assets worth close to US$ 1.5 million.
Mr Shi has set up an elementary school and a night school for farmers in his village. He has attracted wide media publicity in China and won national awards such as National Poverty-Alleviation Hero and Excellent Greening Individual. He has been invited for meetings with top national leaders including with President Jiang Zemin, and attended conferences of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). He believes that farmers in China and other countries can follow his example and create prosperity even out of harsh conditions.
The outstanding marine fisher from the Pacific, Genevieve Ichiro Rechelbang is 45 years old with four children and lives in Iyebukel Hamlet, Koror State in the Republic of Palau. A high school graduate, she gave up a regular paid job to take up full time fishing in the mid-1980s in order to ensure food security for her family.
Starting with a small boat she purchased in the early 1990's to go further out beyond the reefs into deep water, she is now a leading marine fisher with an average monthly income of US$800. She usually sells her catch in the local market or processes it and also caters to special requests from individuals and restaurants in Koror.
According to a survey by the Office of Marine Resources in Palau on the role of women in fisheries, Mrs Rechelbang is one of the few women engaged in fishing there, who uses all fishing methods common in Palau. These include bottom fishing with hook and line; spear fishing with spear gun; general gleaning; night fishing; surround net; seine net; cast net; and trolling.
She is perhaps the first woman in Palau to dive into the sea with a fishing spear gun, which she also does at night with the aid of a flashlight. This is quite dangerous as the water is full of sharks, but they do nothing as long as she is careful. "I like fishing. I feel strong" after coming out of the water, she says. Her example has inspired other women in Iyebukel to learn diving and spear fishing from her and make her feel proud, Mrs Rechelbang says.
The outstanding tea farmer from Sri Lanka, K. M. Opananda is 55 years old and has a plantation in Gonawalapathana village in Nawalapitiya town in the hills of central Sri Lanka. Married and with three sons, he is a chemical engineer by training who gave up an overseas job to return to his farming roots nearly two decades ago.
Unlike his father who was a paddy cultivator, Mr Opananda decided to work on a 6-hectare tea garden he bought in the mid-1980s. Over the years, he has converted three-fifths of his low-yield seed-based tea plantation into a more productive one, with a capacity of 100 000 vegetative propagated plants. As he says, the switch is "a challenge for the smallholder" since it involves a wait of about five years before the planter gets a return on his investment.
Mr Opananda is the recognized leader of small tea farmers in Sri Lanka. For four years in succession, he has been elected president of the Sri Lanka Federation of Tea Small Holdings Development Societies, which represents 150 000 small tea farmers and has worked to obtain better deals from the tea factories. In addition, he is director of the Sri Lanka Tea Board, the Tea Research Institute, the National Institute of Plantation Management, and the Tea Association of Sri Lanka. The Tea Shakthi Fund, of which he is the executive director, assists Sri Lanka's small tea farmers and has set up 11 profitably managed tea factories.
A most recognized farmer, Ireen Tatong is 51, a mother of four children and lives in Nongbua sub-district, Phattananikom district of Lopburi province in central Thailand. A highly successful farm entrepreneur, whose mangoes frequently win the first prize for quality in provincial and regional contests, Mrs Ireen had to struggle through a series of unsuccessful ventures before tasting sweet success as a fruit farmer.
She took up mango farming 30 years ago and now harvests an average of 250 tonnes of fruit every year from her 16 hectares of mango plantation. She uses innovative techniques such as grafting for mango fruit initiation, drip-irrigation and the application of bio-fertilizers that ensure high yields and quality. She is one of the few mango farmers growing the fruit off-season for which she was honoured by leading Thai media organizations in 1999.
Mrs Ireen is now well known and often invited by public and private horticulture institutions across the country to lecture and offer advice on fruit farming. Her farm is a centre for the transfer of horticulture technology and a provincial agro-tourism centre. She is a consultant on horticulture to the Member of Parliament from Lopburi, a member of the Advisory Committee on Agriculture of Lopburi Agricultural and Technology College and heads a number of local farm organizations. She has taken initiatives in sustainable horticulture like using fertilizer made from decayed mango, banana, guava and papaya fruit and non-chemical pesticides extracted from natural medicinal plants.
Honoured with the prize of "Outstanding Woman" of Lopburi province in 1999, she would like other farmers to follow her formula for success, which she describes as "hard work, sincerity and diligence and saving".
An outstanding rice farmer, Xuan Mai Phan Thi lives in Hamlet 1, My Tan Commune, Cai Be district of Tien Giang province in southern Viet Nam. Thirty-nine years old and with one daughter, Mrs Xuan is growing paddy since her marriage in 1990.
Initially, her family faced difficult times because their traditional farming methods produced low yields and income. Things changed for the better when new farming methods and high-yielding rice varieties were introduced to their village in 1997. "Integrated pest management gives us more income from rice growing", says Mrs Xuan. Together with changes in agricultural policies, this has enabled Mrs Xuan to double output to more than 7 tonnes of paddy per hectare during the winter-spring crop and to 4/5 tonnes per hectare for the two remaining crops. The income has allowed the family to buy additional land and it now owns 3 hectares of farm, one-third of which is a fruit orchard.
Using her experience, she has taken part in the selection of high-yield rice varieties that are suitable for export. She is also encouraging other farmers to use the right quantities of fertilizers and pesticides to reduce ecological damage. Mrs Xuan is a guide and mentor to the village women as vice-chairperson of the local women's union, which has 500 members. She says that she wants to help the low-income women farmers in her village and has given out D35 million (about US$2 000) in the form of rice seeds and cash loans. She will be repaid after the harvesting. She has also helped in setting up revolving funds, which provide interest-free loans to poor women farmers in the village.
