On August 4, 2008, at the invitation of H.E. LIU Fei, Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary of P. R. China to the FSM, Hon. John Ehsa, Governor of the State of Pohnpei and Hon. Nelson Pelep, Speaker of Pohnpei State Legislature had a discussion at the Chinese Embassy with five Chinese agricultural technicians on promoting vegetable growing in the FSM. Ambassador LIU Fei pointed out that it was the first time that senior state government and legislature officials together with the Chinese agricultural technicians were invited to have a discussion on the situation of China-aided pilot farm, which was planned to set an example for the local farms and to promulgate vegetable plantation in the FSM.
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Mr. RUAN Wanhui, head of the Chinese technicians, made a presentation via multimedia slice to the audience about the farm's current development, including vegetable and fruits it produced, and how they made use of the organic fertilizer to build an ecological farm. The farm occupies an area of about 80,000 square meters with half of the land designated for the Sino-FSM pilot project of vegetable planting. It has 19 canopies covering 5,928 square meters with the rest open to the air. The farm also has one pig bed of 100 square meters with 40 pigs and a henhouse capable of raising over a thousand chickens. The technicians utilize the manure of pig and chicken to make into organic fertilizer for the vegetable. The pilot farm has been successful in planting 39 kinds of vegetable and fruits, including watermelon, sweet melon, cucumber, pumpkin, sponge gourd, bitter gourd, white gourd, bottle gourd, musk melon, eggplant, tomato, chili pepper, okra, leek, garlic, green onion ,celery, coriander, sweet corn, basella, lima bean, string bean, red flower bean, bush bean, lablab bean, sword bean, soybean, radish, head cabbage, pakchoi, Chinese cabbage, green cabbage, Xiangtan cabbage, flowering cabbage, cauliflower, water spinach, sweet potato, lettuce and edible amaranth. The farm yields 4,000-5,000 pounds of fresh vegetable per month and 50,000-60,000 pounds per year. About 520 local trainees from Pohnpei, Chuuk, Yap and Kosrae have attended training courses in recent years. Meanwhile, over 1000 local people visited the farm, including President, Vice President, Speaker of the National Congress and Senators, government officials from four states, NGOs and Women's Group. The technicians made the following suggestions to state officials:
1. Localize the techniques. Enhance the training course and improve the communication and cooperation between state agriculture marketing department and COM-FSM.
2. Localize the distribution and marketing, enlarge local market access.
3. Increase working efficiency. The salary of local workers should be determined by the workload, and more work, more pay.
4. Rehabilitate the main path in and outside the farm so as to facilitate the transportation of people and products.
The technicians' team is composed of five members from Hunan International Economic and Technical Cooperation Corporation. Mr. RUAN Wanhui is the team leader, responsible for the whole project. Mr. HUANG Shiye is the expert on watermelon and vegetable planting, providing technical assistance. Mr. DENG Guoqiang is the expert on fungus, focusing on fungus production. Mr. PENG Yanzhe is the interpreter helping technicians communicate with visitors and trainees. Mr. SHEN Wanxin is a technician on construction who takes care of the infrastructure and its maintenance. The technicians also put a lot of effort on participating whole process of vegetable production including a great deal of labor work besides their own responsibilities.
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Governor Ehsa and Speaker Nelson expressed their appreciation of the generous aid from the Chinese government for the FSM's sustainable development. The pilot farm plays an important part in advancing local vegetable planting. Pohnpei State Government supports the suggestion from the technicians on building an ecological farm which has the potential export capability to RMI. Governor Ehsa also said that the State government will cooperate with the National government to provide agricultural training service to all the four states in the FSM. The guests asked about the skills of vegetable planting and its management. They also want to add locally popular species such as onion and potato to plantation research of the farm.
The Chinese Embassy prepared watermelon, sweet melon, wax melon, cucumber, tomato, chili pepper and leek from the pilot farm to display. Both sides were satisfied with the outcome of the farm, especially the rare species like sweet melon.
Mr. Ilan Joseph, Chief staff of Pohnpei State, Mr. Valerio Hallens, Administrator of the Department of Economic Management, Mr. Aurelio Joab, Vice-Chairman of the Resource and Development Committee of Pohnpei State Legislature, some senators, Public Information Officers and state economic officers also attended the meeting.
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On August 1, 2008, at the invitation of Ambassador LIU Fei, more than 50 secretaries and staff from the National Government, National Congress and Pohnpei State Legislature paid a visit to the Pilot Farm. Ambassador LIU said that the Pilot Farm had been sponsored by the Chinese Government since 1998. The Chinese agricultural technicians have effectively promoted local agriculture training and helped improve people's livelihood. Visitors are encouraged to learn from the Chinese agriculture technicians to start their own farming business at home. Accompanied by the Chinese technicians, the guests toured the nurseries and the green houses. They asked questions about farming skills and got satisfactory answers from the Chinese technicians. Visitors were confident that the fruitful visit in the Pilot Farm was bound to bear out a harvest in their home fields.
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