Abstract
Technical cooperation is the core of China’s agricultural foreign aid. China’s juncao technical cooperation aid projects in Papua New Guinea and Fiji are typical aid projects provided to developing countries based on China’s agricultural technology, representing different stages in agricultural technical cooperation, with different characteristics of project introduction, implementation, and follow-up development. Compared with those of developed countries, China’s juncao technology projects for Papua New Guinea and Fiji present significant features of South–South cooperation. Three positive and three negative features are as follows: attaching no political conditions, focusing on the transfer of appropriate agricultural technologies, and constant innovations in the modality of foreign aid; and a lack of systematic assistance for agriculture, a lack of engagement with the international agricultural aid system, and paying insufficient attention to mobilizing a range of contributors to development work. The juncao assistance project was not expensive and did not require many foreign aid experts, but it directly benefited people and was welcomed by governments and farmers in the recipient countries. In order to further improve China’s agricultural technical aid, China should make efforts in the following aspects in the future: strengthening systematic agricultural assistance, mobilizing all forces to become involved in foreign aid, and maximizing the synergistic effects of foreign aid.
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- 1.
In order to tackle the conflict between mushroom production and forest protection, Professor Lin Zhanxi from Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University invented the juncao technology in 1986, utilizing grass instead of timber to cultivate both edible and medicinal mushrooms that can be used for livelihood feed, biological energy and environmental protection.
- 2.
Experimental evidence shows that edible and medicinal mushrooms cultivated using juncao technology can provide an efficient source of protein for human beings, with a high yield of 60–75 tons of mushroom per hectare of juncao. In addition, juncao can supply abundant high-quality feed to development livelihoods and fisheries, with more than 15 tons of fresh grass per mǔ (1 mǔ approximates to 666 m2). Juncao can be used to produce methane at twice the level of that obtained from crop straw, and to generate electricity equivalent to that generated from 4 tons of coal. Juncao can also help to prevent and treat water loss and soil erosion to improve deserts and sandy land, and to absorb CO2. In the field of juncao processing, the edible and medicinal mushrooms cultivated by this technology can be used to produce health products as well as environmental protection materials such as beaverboard and paper pulp. Since the 1980s, juncao technology has been applied in 31 provinces and 405 cities, and is listed as a major technology promotion and poverty-reduction project.
- 3.
In 2003, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation was merged into the Ministry of Commerce.
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Materials provided by FAFU.
- 5.
Ministry of Agriculture of Fiji and FAFU (2015) ‘Agricultural Cooperation Seminar in Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and Fiji: JunCao Technology and Modern Ecological Agriculture Technology’, Suva, November 5. Also see FAFU (2015) ‘FAFU and the Ministry of Agriculture of Fiji jointly hosted the “Agricultural Cooperation Seminar – Celebration of the 40 Anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Fiji”,’ Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, November 16. http://english.fafu.edu.cn/f9/6f/c5972a129391/page.htm
- 6.
Ministry of Agriculture of Fiji and FAFU (2015) ‘Agricultural Cooperation Seminar.’
- 7.
Ministry of Agriculture of Fiji and FAFU (2015) ‘Agricultural Cooperation Seminar.’
- 8.
In the 1960s and 1970s, China’s agricultural aid adopted the form of completed projects such as large-scale farms and agricultural technology promotion stations. Such projects had achieved great success in the initial stage of construction, but encountered the problem of poor operation after being transferred to recipient countries. Based on the lessons learned from the previous projects, China has gradually improved the forms of agricultural aid, attaching more importance to intellectual cooperation such as technology transfer and training. Through transferring suitable agricultural technologies with comparative advantages, China’s aid can help recipient counties realize self-reliance and independent development.
- 9.
Dai Linbin (2008) ‘The Role of Giant Food Companies in America’s Foreign Aid to Africa,’ Master’s thesis (Beijing: College of Foreign Affairs), p. 23.
- 10.
JICA (2014) JICA 2014 Annual Report (Tokyo: Japan International Cooperation Agency). www.jica.go.jp/english/publications/reports/annual/2014/index.html
- 11.
USAID et al. (2015) 2015 Achieving Impact. Feed the Future Progress Report 2015 (Washington, DC: US Agency for International Development). https://feedthefuture.gov/progress2015/assets/2015_FTF_Progress_Report.pdf
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Yuan, X. (2019). China’s Agricultural Technical Cooperation: A Case Study on juncao Aid Projects in Papua New Guinea and Fiji. In: Huang, M., Xu, X., Mao, X. (eds) South-south Cooperation and Chinese Foreign Aid. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2002-6_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2002-6_10
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