The girls hired by farmer Yuan-ho Chiu of Hsi-kang, Tainan, to fill the gunny bags with rice grumbled bitterly on account of the additional labor when they were finishing the day's work.
As usual, farmer Chiu asked the girls to pack the grain, which stood in rows on his drying ground. The girls were surprised to find that each two rows yielded twelve bags instead of the nine for the previous crop.
Farmer Chiu was not so surprised as the girls. The additional bags confirmed his anticipation of a bigger harvest. With the assistance of farm extension workers, he had revolutionized his way of rice culture.
Last September 19 more than 200 farmers and extension workers gathered at the southern Taiwan town where Chiu's farm is located to observe rice growth under an integrated and improved demonstration project.
The project covered almost 6,000 hectares of land at Hsikang and in four other townships: Meinung in Kaohsiung county, Tengshih in Taichung, Tayuan in Taoyuan and Wuchih in Ilan. More than 8,800 families were involved.
Among principal techniques were use of improved rice varieties, dense spacing, added and correct use of N-P-K fertilizers and cooperative pest control.
These techniques were implemented on an organized basis. Each township had from 5 to 11 teams divided into from 31 to 55 work units. Each unit worked about 20 hectares of land.
Every work unit had a leader and every team an extension worker to serve as technical supervisor. Higher guidance was provided by technicians from district agricultural improvement stations.
Rice specialists of the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction developed this approach as early as 1963 to increase rice production on the island's limited paddy land. The first demonstration project was launched by JCRR in cooperation with the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Forestry in four areas of only 10 hectares each. The idea was to use all improved techniques at once instead of one or two at a time.
The first small-scale project was handicapped by cultural lag, by farmers' indulgence in old practices and their fear that Integrated use of all improved techniques might involve more labor and expense. Much persuasion was necessary. The project had been extended to 116 townships before it was applied on a much larger scale last summer.
The paddy yield for eight crops in the integrated demonstration plots of 116 townships in the last four years averaged 5,421 kilograms per hectare compared with 4,092 kilograms from control plots - a 32.5 per cent increase. This gain meant an increase of more than US$100 per hectare in the farmer's income. That was enough to convince JCRR, which so far has poured US$85,000 into the project in the hope of more rice and a better life for farmers.
Chiu was one of 8,800 farmers who responded to last summer's call for a change in the way of rice cultivation. To farmers of Hsikang the project has special significance. The township is located in the water-short Chiayi-Tainan area. Here water flows sluggishly from one plot to another, permitting only one rice crop to a piece of land every three years compared with two crops a year in the island's principal rice-growing areas.
Like other farmers of Hsikang, Chiu has had to resort to the complicated three-year rotational cropping system.
On his two-hectare dryland farm, Chiu used to grow sweet potatoes, sugar cane and rice by rotation each three years. He also squeezed in such miscellaneous crops as Cesbania, Mung beans and watermelons.
The three-year rotational cropping system which Chiu inherited from his father is supposed to begin in June when rice is seeded. This crop is harvested by the end of October. Sweet potatoes are next for an April or May harvest. Upland rice follows and occupies three to four months.
The longest lingering occupant of the fields is sugar cane, which takes 18 months to grow after the upland rice is reaped. Several miscellaneous crops occupy the three months after the cane is cut. Then it all begins again.
Rice, the crop most highly valued by Taiwan farmers, plays a secondary role on Chiu's farm. His income comes from sugar cane and sweet potatoes, which are easy to grow in his dry fields although the value is much lower than that of rice.
With Chiu's rice yield increased from 3,600 to 5,400 kilograms per hectare under the demonstration project, the food grain assumes increasing importance on his farm.
Chiu, 51, and his wife, 49, have two sons, 24 and 21, and four younger daughters. "My two sons have grown up and are now good farm hands," he said, "who will help me manage the land more progressively."
A neighbor of Chiu's increased his rice yield from 4,800 to 5,700 kilograms per hectare. He is Shih-pao Chen, 50, who owns 2.5 hectares of dryland somewhat more fertile than Chiu's. He said he will stick to the new technique.
"It costs just the same or even less but has boosted my harvest," he said, refuting the fear of extra labor and higher costs.
Tang-kai Hsien, chief of the Hsikang Township Office, said the 600 hectares of land participating in the project generated additional income of NT$2,800,000 (US$1=NT$40). The average gain was 1,200 kilograms per hectare, worth NT$4,800.
C. H. Huang, JCRR specialist (left), explains demonstration to JCRR chairman Dr. T. H. Shen (center) and American agronomist Dr. Albert H. Moseman. (File photo)
To display what farmers have achieved under the project, field days were held at Meinung and Tayuan after that at Hsikang. The field day at Wuchih had to be canceled because Typhoon Carla hit the rice crop hard. Even so, the increased yield for the five demonstration areas may exceed 32 per cent.
C. H. Huang, JCRR rice specialist and principal designer of the demonstration project, regretted that the typhoon had hurt the Wuchih harvest, which might have been the best of all. More than 11,000 of the 20,000 hectares of Ilan rice land were washed out, buried in mud or soaked by flood waters.
Seven hundred hectares of demonstration paddy rice at Wuchih were at a higher level and escaped severe typhoon damage. A. P. Lin, a leader of 20 farmers in a 19-hectare demonstration area, increased his harvest 80 per cent with a yield of 5,400 kilograms per hectare compared with last year's 3,000 kilograms. For the whole Wuchih area, the increase was expected to be between 20 and 30 per cent despite the typhoon.
Farmer Lin said the joint pest control measures had been highly successful. He also was impressed with the results from application of the right fertilizers at the right time and in amounts to give maximum impetus to plant growth.
Dr. T. H. Shen, JCRR chairman, said that if demonstration techniques can be applied on Taiwan's nearly 800,000 hectares of rice land, production can be increased at least 10 per cent. The island's rice output was 2,379,661 metric tons in 1966 and may reach 2,400,000 tons this year.
The demonstration impressed Dr. Albert H. Moseman, an American agronomist, who came to Taiwan last fall with Dr. Donald Hornig, the science adviser to President Lyndon Johnson, to help the Republic of China with science development. Dr. Moseman had visited Middle Eastern countries just prior to his Taiwan trip and suggested that the lessons learned here could be applied elsewhere with excellent results.