In the hands of the experts

Experiments have also included five varieties of sweet corn and 53 types of vegetables that can be grown locally. Some of the newly grown vegetables are provided to people free, the aim being to cultivate new eating trends, Wang says.

Ongovala Paul Raphael, the center's director, says increasing agricultural diversity is crucial in guaranteeing food safety. But it takes time for locals to get used to produce they had never seen, let alone eaten, before, such as winter melons and balsam pear.

Raphael studied at Guangxi Agricultural University in Nanning for almost 10 years in the 1990s and now works with the Republic of Congo's ministry of agriculture.

"Many Congo people have found these Chinese vegetables not that enjoyable, but they have gradually grown an appetite for them especially after they know how to properly cook them," he says. "For example, my wife used to dislike them, but now she always wants to come to the center to pick vegetables."

The locals not only get to enjoy new tastes with the introduced vegetables, the center promises to pass on to the locals the technology and know-how used in producing them.

Since September, three training sessions, each lasting 15 days, have been held, training a total of 58 local farmers in mainly corn and cassava growing and layer feeding methods, says Zhou Quanfa, head of the office. Board and food were provided free of charge. More, regular training sessions are expected to start this month.

The center is also offering to call on trainees in the countryside to check that they are correctly using the farming methods they have been taught, Zhou says.

This will also be a good opportunity for experts to get in touch with more farmers, Raphael says.

"The most difficult part is, 15 days is still too short for farmers to learn those methods. But the experts have tried their best. For example, they plant corn every month so that when farmers come for training they can see corn in different phases: the newly planted, the stuff that is beginning to blossom, and the crops that are beginning to yield."

Raphael says that though center staff have not been to the countryside yet, the center is already well-known among farmers nationwide thanks to media coverage and visits from organizations such as schools.

He receives many calls from farmers expressing keen interest in the training, he says, some of them upset because they have missed out on getting into earlier courses.

"We had Chinese experts here while I was still at school. Congolese admire and trust Chinese experts and their technology because when they were here, produce prices fell. They think they can learn a lot in a short time when the Chinese are here," he says.

He hopes the number of people being trained can be raised to 40 or even 80 at a time.

"Congolese can only rely on themselves to solve the food problem. Chinese experts are not here to directly tackle the problem, but to train Congolese to be able to solve it themselves."