Hafez Sheikh Mezbahuddin
An outstanding fish farmer from Bangladesh, Hafez Sheikh Mezbahuddin is 42 years old, married and has 4 children. A resident of Chanchra village in Jessore district, he has 20 years of experience in breeding carp and catfish. He manages 18 000 kg of brood fishes on a water area of nearly 10 ha, producing 2 500 kg of carp hatchings per year. His yearly income averages 3.5 million Taka (about US$61 000) from an expenditure of 2.48 million Taka.
Trained in nursery, hatchery and culture techniques for fresh water prawn, marine shrimp and catfish at Bangkok's Kasetsart University and the National Inland Fisheries Institute of Thailand, Mr Mezbahuddin has motivated and trained 50 entrepreneurs and many rural youth to start carp nursery and culture in Bangladesh. An untiring extension worker and instructor, he has worked with government agencies and non-governmental organizations, volunteering his time and expertise to train unemployed villagers in his country. Students from leading national fisheries institutes regularly visit him to study his success.
His efforts to popularize carp culture in Bangladesh have been honoured with the national reward in Carp Hatchlings Production in 1996 and the National Gold Medal in Carp Hatchling production in 2001.
Iyam Maryamah
A dynamic farm leader from the village of Desa Sukatani in Subang district in West Java, Indonesia, Ms Iyam Maryamah is 47, married and has two daughters and grandchildren. Her 3 ha of irrigated farm yields an average of 7 tonnes of rice per hectare, twice a year, against the national average of about 5 tonnes. It took her more than a decade to raise the production from 4 tonnes per hectare using efficient practices such as improved tillage, good seeds, balanced use of fertilisers and integrated pest management. Few women rice farmers in Indonesia have achieved such high yields. She also rears goats and breeds native chicken and ducks.
For over a decade, Ms Maryamah has also led her 78-member farmer group, which includes her husband, and together cultivates 114 hectares of rice fields. She has built a rice storage to enable the farmers to take advantage of better market prices in future. Her leadership is also manifested in the public health activities of the group, which won her presidential awards for family planning in 1991 and 1992.
Ms Maryamah's work has been driven by a strong urge to help poor farmers by her example and leadership, and she feels proud about her success in doing this.
China Kumari Khatri Chetri
An outstanding highland farmer from Nepal, China Kumari Khatri Chetri is 42 years old, married and with seven children. A resident of Dolpa, 150 km north-west from the capital Kathmandu, she has overcome social, economic and geographical odds to become a successful farmer in one of the world's most difficult agro-ecological conditions.
Two years ago, she took the bold decision to switch to vegetable cultivation on more than half her one quarter hectare of rain-and-snow-fed farm, nearly 3 000 metres above sea level in the Himalayas. She grows maize and wheat in succession on 0.1 ha during summer and winter. Using an innovative mixed and rotational cropping, she grows improved potato, onion, radish, broad leaf and coriander on the rest of the land. This ensures her family year-round food security and an additional annual cash income of US$1 000 through the sale of fresh vegetables. Mrs Kumari has motivated 160 farmers to follow her example. Indeed, her farm is the village demonstration and training source for young and not-so-young villagers from the district. A former treasurer of the local wheat seed production group, she is now chairperson of the body. Her achievement was recognised with the first prize in vegetable and wheat seed production recently.
Niwat Pontchour
One of Thailand's most successful fruit farmers, Nivat Pontchour is 55 years old, married and the father of two grown up children. A resident of eastern coastal Rayong province, he has over a quarter century of experience in growing mangosteen for local and foreign markets. Starting from humble beginnings, Khun Nivat has overcome financial and psychological hurdles to prove his conviction that farmers, because they feed the world, can be rich and successful. His 8.8 hectares of fruit orchard produces close to 100 tonnes per year of mainly mangosteen, besides 'long kong', rambutan and durian. Two-thirds is exported to China, Japan and West Europe. He has an annual income of about 2.39 million baht (US$55 000).
A member of Thailand's Senate, his expertise is in great demand in the country and abroad. Mangosteen growers from several Southeast Asian nations visit his farm regularly. A graduate in agriculture with honorary doctorates in horticulture, Khun Nivat mixes traditional and modern methods to nurture his orchard, including greater reliance on organic fertilisers. Already honoured with Thailand's best farmer award, he has innovated efficient ways of plucking, sorting and grading mangosteen. Khun Nivat helps poor farmers in Rayong by funding various village development projects.
