Although Wang Haiyan only completed eight years of schooling, she never lost her thirst for knowledge. And knowledge is often the difference between a successful farmer and one who just gets by.
Eight years ago, Wang and her husband, Yang Hong, decided to become pig farmers. Using the money they saved from working others' fields, they rented a third of a hectare on a mountainside near their small village of Laojiaozhai in Yunnan province of China. They still needed more investment, so they borrowed from a bank and got a grant from their village. With that seed money they planted vegetables and bought eight pigs.
Most farmers in their village have a few pigs. Wang Haiyan had bigger ideas. Pork is the most popular meat in Yunnan, and she believed her family and her village could benefit from a largescale pig farm. So she began using some of the family's meager earnings to subscribe to animal husbandry newsletters. She invested time and money to acquire knowledge.
From those journals, Wang Haiyan learned about sanitation, hygiene, vaccinations and breeding techniques. She read that farmers in other provinces had crossbred swine from Shandong and Henan provinces and got pigs that were bigger and produced larger litters. She followed their example and soon her stock of swine was expanding. Today, her family breeds about 800 pigs each year.
Wang Haiyan didn't forget about her village or her neighbours who helped her whenever she was in need. She taught them what she learned, organized study trips for them to see pig farms in other provinces, and loaned them piglets for breeding so they could get started in the business. She allowed them to pay her back only after the piglets were mature and having their own litters. "I can't be happy unless my neighbours are happy too. This is our way of life,'' she says.
Wang Haiyan hopes her township and province will invest in farmers by providing vaccinations and medicine for their animals. Eventually she would like to use her profits to buy the family its own land. But not before investing in education for her son Yang Zhaiwei and daughter Yang Mingrong. Wang Haiyan is living proof that, for a farmer, investing in knowledge is an investment in the future.
In places where traditions are valued, change can come slowly. Rural Myanmar is such a place. Any visitor to this nation nestled between India and China can't miss the fact that much of the countryside is still farmland, inhabited by mostly poor rural dwellers.
Indeed, farmers are the backbone of the country. When Myanmar's farmers are doing well, Myanmar is doing well. One farmer who has done better than most is U Moe Win.
Born into a farming family in Phyote Khwe Village in Mandalay Division in 1955, U Moe Win was raised to till the soil. His father planted sugar cane, and he continued that tradition when he inherited the family's 10 acres. Though change may come slowly in a place like Myanmar, change does come. U Moe Win is a man who believes the future always has the potential to be better than the past, and so he made changes to the way he raised his sugar cane.
He did this after attending a training course given by the Myanmar Sugar Cane Association. He took what he learned back to his farm and began experimenting with different combinations of fertilizers and different watering regimes. He invested time and effort to try new things. Through trial and error, he found the optimum mix for his soil and his crop. The results were extraordinary.
Most sugar cane farmers harvest an average of 30 tons of sugar cane per acre each year. U Moe Win harvests between 40 and 45 tons. He is nearly 50 percent more productive than the average farmer.
That kind of success brings rewards. With his extra profits from his larger harvests, U Moe Win invested in more land, expanding his family's farm to 24 acres. When the time comes, his three sons and one daughter will have an even larger inheritance than he had.
U Moe Win's family isn't the only one benefiting from his success. In keeping with local traditions that value the community over individualism, he has shared what he has learned with his fellow villagers. Several of them are also harvesting more cane from their fields than ever before, and the man they can thank for that is U Moe Win.
Caring for your community, investing in knowledge and building a better future for farmers are traditions that are valued everywhere. They're traditions that will never die as long as there are farmers such as U Moe Win.
The region around Jacobabad in Pakistan is a tough place to be a farmer. Jacobabad is hot. Its soil is salty and waterlogged. Getting rice to grow there is hard work that doesn't always bring rewards.
Rashid Hussain is making that work a bit easier for his fellow farmers. Rashid's father, Haji Abdul Rasool Khoso, was an educated man, and saw to it that his sons were educated also. They knew there had to be a better way. So, they appealed to the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture Tandojam. What they got were seeds for new strains of rice the Institute had bred to be more resilient in places such as Jacobabad.
The family transformed their 1 000 acres into a seed farm. The Arshad-Rashid Farm - setting a good example of public private partnership - grows various strains of rice from scientists, not to harvest for themselves, but to produce millions of seeds of higher quality, more resilient rice to supply farmers in neighbouring provinces.
Hussain played an important role in the development of new strains of rice. He carried outfield research. He experimented with different seeds, different combinations and levels of fertilizer, and various other farming methods to gauge their effects on how the different strains of rice grew. He monitored and evaluated the production and the results.
Then the family helped their neighbours. "When people work hard, they deserve to see the fruits of their labours,'' Hussain says. His farm shows others what can be done with new strains, such as "Shahkar" rice which gives very high yields in tough regions such as Jacobabad.
Although he sells his seeds, Hussain freely gives farmers technical support -knowledge and advice so their harvests will be bountiful.
Jacobabad is Pakistan's rice belt, "but our land is not very fertile,'' Hussain says. Farmers want the Government to invest in badly-needed drainage canals, or the salty waterlogged soil could turn completely barren in the future. Hussain hopes the Government will plant the seeds of sustainability for Jacobabad. In the meantime, he'll keep doing his part, seeding the futures of his fellow farmers.
A 57-year-old aquaculture farmer from the southern province of Chumpon, Phloiruedee Pitiworawong is a model of perseverance. Some 22 years ago, she and her husband Prawet pooled their money and founded an inland shrimp farm. Three years later, they lost everything. Typhoon Gay washed away their stocks. But Khun Phloiruedee and her husband persevered. They rebuilt their farm. Then Prawet died, leaving her with 5 million baht in debt. Khun Phloiruedee worked harder, producing 40 tons of shrimp a year, and paid back the bank. But her troubles weren't over. An epidemic of disease wiped out her shrimp, leaving her in debt again by 2 million baht.
Others might have given up. Not Khun Phloiruedee. On a trip to the local market she noticed that sea bass fetched high prices. Listening to a distance learning program on radio sponsored by His Majesty's Chai Pattana Foundation, she heard that sea bass could be farmed. With fingerlings from the Department of Fisheries, she gave it a try. The yields weren't as high as shrimp, but it was more sustainable. She encouraged her neighbors to switch, and many have followed her example.
Then Typhoon Linda came and flooded her farm. Once again, Khun Phloiruedee rebuilt. What kept her going, she says, was her goal of educating her two daughters and one son. That goal has been achieved. All her children have now graduated from universities in Bangkok. With a degree in irrigation engineering, her 26-year-old son Piti has returned to work with heron the farm. She still, however, owes the bank. Farming requires investment, and the risk is all on the farmer. Khun Phloiruedee doesn't let the debt drag her down. "Be honest. As long as people see you trying, they will help,'' she says. "A farmer's life is one of struggle, but never give up. You must persevere.'' Those are words of which His Majesty would surely approve.
She is a fervent advocate of sustainable farming - making optimal use of land, water and other natural resources -motherly devotion, and love for the land and children of Thailand.
FAO today honours Phloiruedee Pitiworawong for outstanding achievement as fish farmer.
