Tue, Sep 17, 2019 page3

• Agricultural mission in Solomons touts successes

  • Staff writer, with CNA, HONIARA
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  An agricultural mission stationed in the Solomon Islands as part of a cooperation program with Taiwan has won the hearts of locals, as it has helped to improve animal and crop husbandry for more than three decades, Hsueh Hsuan-ping (薛烜坪), head of the Taiwan Technical Mission in the Solomon Islands, said on Saturday.

  Whenever people see one of the mission’s vehicles passing, they give it the thumbs up and say: “Oh, Taiwan,” Hsueh said.

  Such gestures are not common among the people of the Solomon Islands, who normally keep foreigners at a distance, despite the South Pacific nation being dubbed the “Happy Isle,” he said.

  

  A vehicle sits outside the Technical Mission of the Republic of China in the Solomon Islands on Saturday.

  Photo: CNA

  “After years of effort by the technical mission, people are kind to Taiwanese in the Solomon Islands,” he said.

  The mission arrived in the capital, Honiara, in December 1983, nine months after Taiwan established diplomatic ties with the Solomon Islands.

  Awnie, a 50-year-old resident, said that as a student, he saw big watermelons and pumpkins at the Taiwan booth at the nation’s Independence Day gala.

  Taiwanese would invite passers-by to sample fruit and vegetables, Awnie said, adding she would visit the Taiwanese booth after school because the watermelons were tasty.

  Four years ago, when Hsueh was transferred to the Solomon Islands after serving at technical missions in other allied nations for more than 20 years, he saw that a quarter of a cabbage sold for NT$200 (US$6.46) in supermarkets, as they were imported from Australia.

  His mission began teaching local farmers how to grow cabbages, so now the price for a locally grown cabbage is half or even one-third of an imported one, Hsueh said.

  In 2015, the mission produced a new breed of pig, which was named “SolRoc No. 1” by Solomon Islands Minister of Agriculture Augustine Auga.

  Compared with white pigs commonly raised in the nation, which are mostly pasture-fed, the SolRoc — named for the Solomons and the Republic of China (ROC) — is more adaptable to the local environment thanks to its tolerance for heat and bug bites, Hsueh said.

  At a Taiwan-run farm close to Honiara International Airport, one of two farms the mission runs, at least 20 kinds of vegetables, fruit, rice and other staple crops are grown, he said, adding that they are used as lecture materials and to provide seedlings for Solomon Islands farmers.

  All the crops harvested are donated for school lunches or, during the summer and winter breaks, to the National Referral Hospital, he said.

  The program has borne fruit and helped establish a pattern of mutual interaction, Hsueh said.

  The private sector in the Solomon Islands is inclined to maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan and would like the mission to stay, so “it is a pity that the decisionmakers are not common people,” he said.

  If formal Taipei-Honiara links are severed, “it will be a pity for both sides,” he added.

  The Solomon Islands, one of Taiwan’s 17 diplomatic allies, has been assessing its relations with Taiwan since Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare took office after a general election in April.

  Sogavare yesterday severed ties with Taiwan after a meeting earlier in the day discussing a task force report that recommended the country switch allegiance to China.
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