Nikkei Asia Prizes 2002

Vo-Tong Xuan

'Farmer doctor' a hero in Vietnam Agriculturist transformed his country from importer to major exporter of rice

BY TAKESHI MACHIDA
staff writer

HANOI - The life of agriculturist Vo-Tong Xuan is, as he puts it "with the farmers of Vietnam." He served as the driving force in transforming Vietnam, once a net importer of rice, into the second-largest rice-exporting country in the world.

While researching at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines in 1971, Xuan was asked to teach agriculture at Cantho University in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam. There he witnessed the distress of rice growers struggling with the abnormal growth of a harmful insect called the brown plant hopper.

He selected IR26, which is resistant to noxious insects, from the several rice varieties he received from the IRRI. However, the farmers refused to try the new variety, finding it difficult to believe the word of a new teacher who had studied abroad.

This prompted Xuan to use a morning radio program popular among farmers in those days. He called upon the farmers to use the new variety during the show and distributed 1kg of rough rice to each farmer who came to the radio station. The number of visitors increased and the rice yield grew rapidly.

However, harmful pests infested the crop again in 1976, when a new type of insect resistant to IR26 appeared, prompting Xuan to switch to IR36, also from the IRRI.

Spreading rice

Initially he experienced the same difficulties in popularizing the new variety. With the country still in confusion following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, Xuan used college students to spread the new variety. He taught the students how to grow the rice, and, working in teams with teachers, they visited farmers, bringing rough rice with them. Their efforts were widely accepted and the insects were wiped out in eight months.

When Xuan started to teach agricultural technologies, Vietnam was still in the midst of war. His wife was opposed to their return to the country from the Philippines in 1971, and he only managed to persuade her by making the president of Cantho University promise not to send him to the front lines.

The real front line was the farm, he said. On one occasion he made an appointment for a visit to a farmhouse to teach agricultural technologies but he was politely turned away. He was told later that soldiers of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam had been holding a council of war at the farmhouse that day.

Xuan was working on a doctoral thesis at Kyushu University at the beginning of 1975. With newspapers reporting that the Vietnam War was close to ending, he was torn between two choices - return home or remain in Japan.

What prompted him in the end to go back to Vietnam was the thought of farmers there after being amazed by the affluent lifestyles of agricultural workers in Kyushu. He wondered why Vietnamese farmers remained poor despite working hard and decided his mission was to teach them the knowledge he had obtained.

He returned to Vietnam on April 2, immediately before the fall of Saigon.

Surviving free trade

Xuan is currently doing his utmost to improve the quality of rice, so that Vietnamese rice exports will survive even under a free trade system. Farmers affectionately call him the "farmer doctor."

Born in 1940 in Chaudoc Province (currently Angiang Province), Vietnam, he got a master's degree in agriculture from the University of the Philippines in 1969. After serving as a researcher at the IRRI, he returned to Vietnam in 1971. He was awarded his doctorate from Kyushu University in 1975.

He served as a member of the National Assembly of Vietnam from 1981 to 1997 and received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service in 1993. He was nominated the first rector of Angiang University when the university was established in 2000.