(キャッサバとベトナム－今昔物語）
Kazuo Kawano
I visited Vietnam for a week this last December, where a team of NHK video-taped for a documentary of the changes caused by the new cassava varieties I introduced 20 years ago in the lives of small framers, the enhanced activities of industrial and business communities and the development of research organizations. It was a most interesting, amusing and rewarding visit where I reunited with a multitude of former small farmers who are more than willing to show me how their living had been improved because of KM-60 and KM-94 (both CIAT-induced varieties) , many “entrepreneurs” who started from a village starch factory, and several former colleagues who became Professor, Vice Rector of Universities, Directors of research centers and so on. Vietnam can be regarded as a country who accomplished the most visible and visual progress most rapidly and efficiently utilizing CIAT-induced technology.
For my own record as well as for responding to the requests from my Vietnamese colleagues, I decided to record the changes and progress that had taken place in Vietnam in general and in cassava varietal development in particular in a series of picture stories. This is the first of long stories that would follow.
昨年の12月に、NHKの国際ドキュメンタリー番組の収録でベトナムを10年ぶりに再訪する機会があった。それは私が中心となって開発したキャッサバの多収性・高澱粉性の新品種群を20年 前に導入した事が引き起こした人々の生活向上の様子を、南から北へと訪ね歩く旅であった。今回の旅では、小農から出発して家を建て中農、富農となった多数 の人々、村の澱粉加工所の親父だったのが大工場のオーナーや実業家となっている幾人もの成功者、そして殆んど名前だけの研究員であったのが今や試験場長、 大学教授、副学長になっている昔の仲間達を訪ね歩いたが、その殆んどの人が私との再会を喜んでくれて、口々に新しいキャッサバ品種のおかげで自分達の生活 と境遇が革命的に良くなったと話してくれた。
私自身の記録のため、それにベトナムの昔の仲間からのリクエストに答える目的もあって、この20年間のベトナムの発展とキャッサバ生産の進展を絵物語風に書き留めることにした。これはその長い物語の始まりの章である。
The basis of Vietnamese agriculture is rice. Cassava is planted on the upper parts.
In flat, dry area, they plant cassava predominantly
Meeting old friends at Hung Loc Agricultural Research Center：Now, Hoang Kim is Senior Lecturer at Nong Lam University in Ho Chi Minh city and Nguyen Huu Hy is Director of Hung Loc Agricultural Research Center
Reunion with advanced farmer Mr. Ho Sau with Hoang Kim and students in Trang Bom, Dong Nai
Reunion with advanced farmer Mr. Tong Quoc Thanh with Hoang Kim in Tay Ninh
Meeting Former Director Truong Van Ho, old colleague Trinh Thi Phuong Loan (Retired as Deputy Director) and other friends at Root Crop Research Center, Vietnam Agricultural Science Institute in Hanoi
Meeting Tran Ngoc Ngoan (Now, Vice-Rector of Thai Nguyen University), Mrs. Loan and Mr. Ngo Trung Kien (an advanced farmer) in Mr. Kien’s house, Pho Yen, Bac Thai
Meeting Mrs. Sau and Mrs. Quyen, successful former cassava farmers, in Hatay, near Hanoi
Giving concluding remarks in the end of Vietnam Journey in Lake Hoan Kiem, Hanoi,
5 Dec 2009
A BRIEF HISTORY OF A SUCCESSFUL BREEDING PROGRAM
As is widely known, Vietnam has accomplished a rapid economic development in recent 20 years. During the same period, , cassava, starting from a low status crop grown by small farmers and consumed as human food by poor people, has grown into a major crop providing raw materials for animal feeding, industrial starch processing and most recently bio-ethanol production (though I have some reservations for using cassava for this purpose), thus bringing precious cash income to millions of small farm families. When I first visited Vietnam in 1988, cassava’s acreage all over the country was 0.28 million ha with mean yield of 8.4 t/ha. It now occupies 0.56 million ha (official figure: the actual figure is said to be around 0.65 million ha; the emphasis of research is gradually shifting from varietal improvement to soil conservation) with 15.9t/ha mean yield. Vietnam has now advanced to World No. 2 exporter of cassava products next only to Thailand.
It is extremely gratifying to witness this progress toward the end of my career; then, what made this experience possible? The breeding work that has brought this result started when I joined CIAT as cassava breeder in 1973, where CIAT was inaugurating an integrated cassava research program with global mandate by recruiting a half dozen of young PhD from world reputable universities. As such, I initiated a comprehensive cassava breeding program using a population which contained a vast genetic variation coming from more than 2000 native varieties collected from the centers of origin and diversification of cassava all over Latin America.
Especially noteworthy in this process is the fact that those countries such as Colombia, Brazil and Mexico where abundant cassava germplasm existed donated to or allowed CIAT to collect native cassava varieties on the condition that the newly established international research center CIAT uses all these germplasm for the welfare of people in the world without pursuing any monetary profit. It goes without saying that those rural small farmers who grew native cassava varieties inherited from their ancestors were very cooperative with the CIAT collection. The researchers as well the early CIAT administration clearly shared the immeasurable importance of basic germplasm in pursuing large scale breeding.
I accomplished much of the basic breeding during the first 10 years at CIAT/Colombia and moved to Thailand in 1983 by opening a CIAT/Asia office on the understanding that the effect of cassava varietal improvement would be more eminent in Asia. Thus, I started a more practical breeding in close collaboration with Thai workers. Here again, we were very thankful that the Colombian government allowed us to transfer cassava breeding materials to Asia without condition. As a result, I had transferred more than 1 million genotypes of cassava, mainly in the form of F1 hybrid seeds, from Latin America to Asia during the 15 years that followed.
This breeding work, based on the hybridizations between Latin American and Thai materials, resulted in a great success and produced many superior varieties. Now, some 97% of the total 1.15million ha of cassava in Thailand is planted with these new varieties we developed. I transferred many advanced breeding materials from Thailand to other Asian countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, China and Vietnam. In this process as well, the Thai government authorization of transferring our breeding materials to other Asian countries, which could well be potential (in fact, actual) competitors to Thailand, was to be highly appreciated.
In 1989, I brought planting stakes of Rayong 60 and Kasetsart 50 among others as a check-in baggage of the Bangkok-Ho Chi Minh flight (The import and plant quarantine permit had been very willingly arranged by the Vietnamese institution). Upon harvesting the first cycle evaluation /multiplication at Hung Loc Center in 1990, I carried the planting stakes of these varieties from HCM to Hanoi to be evaluated and multiplied by the research institutions in the North. In retrospect, my action was rather unorthodox power play. Nevertheless, considering that this was the beginning of a long story which would develop to generating an annual additional economic effect in the order of 200 million US dollars to be shared by the millions of small farmers, power play may be justified on certain critical occasions.
F1 selection at CIAT/Colombia in1976
One of the early selections, CIAT/Colombia circa 1980
F1 selection at Rayong Center, Thailand, circa 1987
Rayong 60 in Feb 1988 at Rayong Center, one of the major early successes at CIAT/Thai collaborative breeding program
A typical cassava field in North Vietnam in 1989
Cassava harvest being carried to market in Ho Chi Minh city in 1988
Processing cassava for noodle near Bien Hoa in 1988
Cassava starch processing as a cottage industry in Tay Ninh early 1990s
By 1996, farmers can harvest more cassava for feeding pigs by planting new varieties (Here is KM-60 or Rayong 60 in Hung Loc Agricultural Research Center, Dong Nai Province (1990) and Ha Tay Province (1996)
Large scale cassava starch factories began to appear in Tay Ninh circa 1996
Cassava starch production became a big business following the step of Thailand (Tay Ninh 2009)
Now, the Bio-ethanol processing using cassava (A new Bio-Ethanol Plant is being built in Phu Tho)
Hanoi
A similar transmutation took place in Hanoi, but the extent of metamorphosis is actually greater in Hanoi because Hanoi in the 1980s was somewhat dismal place.
A typical Hanoi building in 1989
A Hanoi street in 1989
Hanoi outlook in 2009, it is quite an attractive town
Hanoi street is less noisy and probably more cultured than HCM (2009)
Relaxing at Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi (2009)
People (South)
Children and housing in Bien Hoa near Ho Chi Minh city in 1988
Moon cake factory in Ho Chi Minh city in 1988
Busy street in Ho Ch Minh city in 2009
Barbecue shop in Ho Chi Minh city in 2009
Children and mothers attending an art class in Ho Chi Minh city in 2009
People (North)
“Curiosos”; When we visited Hanoi in 1989, just the presence of Reinhardt Howeler caused quite a sensation.
Farm people near Hanoi in 1989
Children in cassava field near Hanoi in 1989
People in front of Mrs. Sau’s house in Hatay, near Hanoi in 2009; Successful lives change many things.
People relaxing on the bridge at Hoang Kiem Lake in Hanoi in 2009
Hanoi street shop in 2009; Westerners are no longer a curiosity
