Taiwan rice's green revolution in the dark continent
↑ Farmers in Burkina Faso share the joy of a bumper harvest of Taichung Xian No. 10 rice with the Taiwan agricultural technical team represented by Dr. Hsieh Shun-ching (second from right). (Photo provided by Hsieh Shun-ching)
He is the driving force behind the green miracle that lit up Africa, the continent once called the "Dark Continent."
He is Taiwan's diplomatic vanguard, winning worldwide respect through agriculture amid Taiwan's difficult international circumstances.
Hsieh Shun-ching, an internationally renowned rice breeding expert and winner of the first Presidential Peace Award, bears beneath his warm, radiant smile the marks of years spent cutting canals and breaking ground in scorching deserts. Even now, in his eighties, he still walks steadily back and forth between Taipei and Pingtung, serving as a chair professor at the Graduate Institute of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, continuing to pass on agricultural knowledge to students from Third World countries and sowing seeds of friendship for Taiwan.
Born in Guanyin Township, Taoyuan County, Hsieh Shun-ching grew up farming and developed an early interest in rice cultivation. From agricultural school and university agricultural college to master's and doctoral degrees in the United States and Japan, his studies all revolved around rice. Because of his outstanding academic performance, he was recommended to work for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency, giving him the opportunity to travel the world helping developing countries increase food production.
As one of the few Taiwanese with such a distinguished career and international outlook, Hsieh Shun-ching was recruited immediately after retiring from public service in July 1993 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to serve as executive secretary of the Overseas Technical Cooperation Committee, launching a journey of agricultural peace on the diplomatic battlefield across the Taiwan Strait.
The first stop: Burkina Faso in West Africa, an ancient inland civilization south of the Sahara Desert.
Before the public television drama "Sky at 45 Degrees C" aired the story of young Taiwanese alternative service conscript Lien Chia-en carrying out medical service in Burkina Faso, Hsieh Shun-ching had already led a Taiwanese survey team in February 1994 to Burkina Faso, which had just restored diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
As early as 1961, when Burkina Faso established diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the Taiwan agricultural technical team had already reclaimed more than 1,200 hectares of rice-growing area from the desert in the Gu River reclamation zone, 600 kilometers from the capital Ouagadougou. Farmers in the rice-growing area planted rice varieties introduced from Taiwan and, under the guidance of the farming team, achieved the highest rice yield per unit area in all of Africa. The region prospered as a result and became a model of successful Green Revolution in African countries.
Under Hsieh Shun-ching's planning, the achievements of the Taiwan agricultural technical team not only made headlines in Burkina Faso's media but also drew the attention of agricultural technical teams from other countries. Eleven countries including Japan and Saudi Arabia had been reclaiming land on the left bank of the Bagre for over a decade without progress, while Taiwan, working on the more difficult right bank, produced results, leaving them deeply ashamed.
In the end, these eleven countries also approached the Taiwan agricultural technical team, hoping to draw on the "Taiwan experience" to reclaim the left bank.
From Africa, Central and South America, and South Pacific island nations to the Asia-Pacific region, one could often see Hsieh Shun-ching bringing green miracles to many poor and backward countries during his more than ten years as executive secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Overseas Committee and deputy secretary-general of the International Cooperation and Development Fund.
Unfortunately, diplomatic battles across the Taiwan Strait raged in those years, and the agricultural development efforts that Taiwan's agricultural technical teams built for diplomatic allies could be washed away the following year due to a severing of diplomatic ties. But Hsieh Shun-ching said, "I believe the harder life is, the more splendid it is; the more difficult the undertaking, the more magnificent."
Facing a series of challenges from the natural environment and setbacks in Taiwan's diplomacy, whenever he recalls the sense of achievement of "enjoying" turning deserts into fertile fields and watches local farmers dance with joy in celebration of the harvest, all of Hsieh Shun-ching's frustrations vanish into thin air.
MacArthur said, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away." For Hsieh Shun-ching, though he is advanced in years, he still teaches at NPUST, lecturing on "agricultural technology transfer to developing countries" for more than 60 international students from around the world.
"I believe that after these students return home, they will spread the Taiwan experience around the world and raise Taiwan's international standing," Hsieh Shun-ching said with full confidence. This old soldier of agricultural diplomacy remains forever vigorous, thinking about how to sow the seeds of his splendid life and magnificent career.
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