A country of contradictions

As I taxi down the Beijing runway on the way to San Francisco, I have mixed feelings about if I will return to China. I am not sure. I have found China a fascinating place; it is a place of contradictions. I am okay contradictions but in China, the constant contradictions are near exhausting.

Let me explain.

The culture of China is incredible. I have read a little about her history, seen my share of Chinese movies and now have had a good snapshot of the real China. Millennia of cultural development, global trade and innovation has shaped her and the richness of the history is obvious. China is clearly a key figure in the global economy now and will be moreso into the future.

As we traveled through southern,central and northern China, we saw rich bedside poor, communism and capitalism working alongside, beautiful scenery and environmental practices that shocked us, innovative agriculture which make us feel like amateurs and practices which are centuries old, westernism seems to be the measure of success, while one street back off the westernized shopping areas, you enter a Chinese timewarp and have classic street markets selling live snakes, frogs and turtles destined for tonight's dinner.

There are people everywhere and everyone seems anonymous. Perhaps I have over thought this, perhaps i should have just taken it all at face value but the nature of Nuffield is about testing you'r world view with what you see. China is an amazing country, it is a land of opportunity for those

Back from behind the bamboo curtain

I have been cyber-silent for quite some time despite my promises to blog consistently during my travels. Well, its not my doing. I blogged once at the start in China and then it went all wrong. After that blog my internet access gradually got worse and worse. From the start we couldn't access Facebook, Utube or Twitter within China.

 I could access many blog to update it once and then no more. After that went Google Maps and Google Earth followed by Picasa, no remote access to my work computer and finally in the end I couldn't even access my emails.

 This experience was consistent amongst the Nuffield group, a gradual decline of internet access. We discussed this as a group regularly as we thought perhaps there may be some paranoia, but the experience was the same for all.

 I'm sure there is a logical explanation for it........

 Here are a few of the sights we saw along the way.

China - different world...

Rather than do alot of writing, I have added a selection of photos taken today.  Firstly there is the boat trip to Guangzoh, then the vegetable farm we visited and finally dinner where we chose the innocents which we then ate...I also tried a bit of tripe too...

 

 

Did you know that rice grows up to 12ft tall...

Warning the contents below is a little geeky so read with caution if you are not into plant science....but you might learn something!

We visited the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos, Phillippines and got the low-down on rice generally and the work they are doing there.  Rice is not something I knew much about until today.

I learnt a couple of useful facts that are well worth dropping into the odd conversation.  Such as at IRRI there are over 110,000 strains of rice in the seed bank

; there are two other seed banks globally which store 500 grams of seed in each; there is aerobic and anaerobic grown rice; a new strain of rice has been developed which contains vitamin A, the second largest mineral deficiency amongst children in the developing world, the greatest mineral deficiency is iron for which they are currently working on a strain of rice which supplies that

; they have long running trials (50 years continious cropping) which show a surprisingly little yield drop with no fertiliser application - yield approx 60% of fertilised plots

; some strains of rice can grow up to 12ft tall which are then harvested by boat.

We visited the Genebank, the Genetic Transformation laboratory and the Molecular Marker Applications Laboratory, the Rice Museum and the C4 rice plant growth facilties.

A couple of things struck me as really significant in the area of the rice plant breeding progamme, the development of flood tolerant rice, iron rich rice and on the horizon is the development of a C4 strain of rice (rice is currently C3).  I am not going to give  plant science lecture on the difference between C4 and C3 plants other than to say as a C4 rice plant it will be hugely more productive; photosynthesis will increase by 100%, it will be 1.5 - 3 x more water efficient, nitrogen use efficiency will increase by 260% and yield will increase by 50%.  It will be nothing short of transformational so if you want to unserstand C3/C4 stuff better do a Google search on it and stun your friends at dinner parties.

We conquered Taal Volcanic Lake

 

Photos above pics of downtown Los Panos and the craziness.

We got  good insight to the way of life for many Philippino people today as we travelled to Taal Volcanic Lake in the Laguna area. 

The startling contrast between very nice well established houses and gardens sat in stark contrast to the dirt floored shacks in which the majority of people lived.  The traffic chaos and business, the colours and signs everywhere, the crazy power lines strung between poles and the friendly, polite people.  The Philippines is an interesting place.

As we travelled by bus to Taal Volcano, we discussed many things but one conversation stands out.   How will the many poor people such as we were seeing who currently eek out an existence now, cope as food prices continue to rise.  We saw food riots emerge in Indonsesia and Egypt three or four years ago as the cost of staples increased alarmingly.  The poor are the ones that ultimatly get hit the hardest as they have no financial resillience, and for NZ and Australia this should be of significant concern as these places are in our 'neighbourhood' not on the other side of the world.  It is a tough issue that cannot be ignored.

We had a great day........ as well as tackling this weighty issue

Below, the team negotiating with the locals for a cheap boat crossing and the trip accross the lake to Taal Volcano 

We cross the Equator

Packing gifts in Canberra

A day of travel filled today as we lept from Canberra to Sydney then on to Manila.  It is fair to say I am looking forward to delving and learning about other farming systems but also other cultures, throw accross the top of that ten complete stangers who will be living in each others pockets and it will mke for an interesting six weeks.  There could be a reality TV show in there somewhere I reckon... Amazing Race meets Farmer Finds a Wife.

This cohort of Nuffields are an interesting bunch, extensive beef farmers, organic pork producers, sheep farmers,  peony rose grower, a dairy farmer, a couple of arable farmers doing some clever marketing and diversified business and me.

The crew as we depart Aussie

Bringing together such a broad range of smart people looking and learning about  global agriculture has got to be an interesting thing to do.

Were in Manila now and the noise, the smells the bussle and activity is intense.  It is a long way from anywhere where most of us have come from.  Off to visit the International Rice Research Institute tomorrow....

We're all indespensible...checking phones upon arrival at Manila after 8 hours off the grid

Briefing Day in Canberra

It is day two of our Nuffield Global Focus Tour and we heard from the Australian National Farmers Federation, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the USDA and the Research and Development Corporation.  What struck me is the universality of the issues, yet again.

It is a de-ja-vu kind of thing because the human capability challenge is high on the agenda for Australia.  And again, interest in NZ's approach, particularly with a pan industry collaboration, catches alot of attention and clearly there is strong interest in the approach.  It motivates me to work harder at making it work in NZ and to look for sucess overseas for us to learn from.

An interesting concept surfaced today around farmers having a 'social licence' to produce food.  I have to reflect on it a bt more but it alludes to the right confered onto farmers by society to produce food.  It begs the question 'if farmers were not allowed by society to grow food, what would people eat'....which is cleary a ridiculious notion.  It does however highlght the responsibility farmers have to produce food by best practice, as efficiently and ethically as possible.  I wonder if community reaction to some of the news articles about farming are a challenge to that social licence we readily assume is present.

Below the Nuffield crew are preparing to set off for the Phillipines and are packing some gifts.