住所ツアー参加者の感想 1999年拓也君ジャーナル
Takuya Kondo
現在、ClarkUniversity in
Massachusetts, the USAに留学中の大学生です。
彼は今年の3月中国語の勉強の為滞在していた北京で、たまたまＧＮＣのホームページを開き、非常に興味をもってくれ、今年度の植林ツアーに参加してくれました。
次に掲載しますのは、彼がアメリカへ戻った際に、大学に提出した研究レポートanalysis
paper,とjournal（何でも適当にモンゴルで気付いたこと）です。
Takuya Kondo
'99 Summer
Case Study: Agricultural
Potentialities in Mongolia
In 1999 summer, I joined a NGO called GNC (Global Network for
Coexistence) and we went to Mongolia to plant windbreaks for
promoting Mongolian agriculture. Although I've been interested in
studying Asian development problems, honestly before going to
Mongolia I hadn't really paid attention to this country, and knew
very little about what Mongolia was like. Through this precious
experience, however, I learned so much about Mongolia. There is
no wonder that Mongolia is one of the countries that will be
crucial to look at in the very near future. Mongolia is located
between two big socialism countries, Russia and China. Although
until 1980s Mongolia had been greatly influenced by those two
countries, since 1991 the government has begun to adopt
capitalism economy and democracy and the country has been through
so much change. Also, recently the security of East Asia has been
paid more attention than ever because of the menaces of North
Korean and Chinese reinforced militaries, and Mongolia will be
certainly an essential country to think about for the East Asian
security issues. In this paper, however, I will discuss Mongolian
agriculture. This is because agriculture is what I learned the
most through this experience. First, I will briefly talk about
Mongolian economic and social backgrounds and why and how this
NGO (GNC) started to plant windbreaks. The second half of this
paper will explore the potentiality of Mongolian agriculture.
Economic and Social Backgrounds in Mongolia
As mentioned above, after the collapse of the former Soviet and
the collective farm system, Mongolia adopted capitalism economy
in 1991. In order to promote smooth shift to market economy, the
Mongolian government made three-year economic plan (1991-1993).
However, due to the rapid changes, the plan resulted in causing
economic crisis and social problems.
The central area in Mongolia is very important for its
agricultural supply to the urban areas. However, recently the
financial aid from Russia considerately decreased. Thus, the
agricultural production dropped dramatically due to the lack of
equipment and facility. So, the food supply for the citizens has
been in a very unstable condition.
Under these conditions, in 1992 the Mongolian government asked
the Japanese government for agricultural supports. Shariki
village in Aomori prefecture responded to this request. Shariki
village has an interesting history. The village used be a dessert
and didn't have a desirable climate condition for agriculture;
it's very cold and dry. However, the village planted windbreaks
to protect crops from wind and the dry weather. Now, in the
village a lot of people engage in agricultural activity and make
livings. Shariki village has taught Mongolian people how to make
rice and vegetables and every summer a group of young Mongolian
people go to Shariki village to learn about agriculture. Although
they succeeded in making new crops, it did not result in success
in a real sense because the wind from Northwest damages all the
crops in the area. Therefore, our organization, GNC decided to
make windbreaks around the farms. The GNC remarks a number of
important meanings of windbreaks in the area.
1) If there are many trees in the area, the ability of water
absorption in the soil will be enhanced and it will be possible
to do agricultural activities around the area.
2) In the area, there is a strong wind from Northwest, and the
wind damages the crops every year. This is one reason to have
windbreaks in the area.
3) Due to the dry weather, water level of Helren river near the
area has been lowered. Forestation activities will solve this
problem and in a long-run perspective, it will prevent the area
from becoming desert.
4) Finally, GNC does not want a development with heavy machines
or equipment such as the creation of irrigation system, or does
not want to use a pesticide/fertilizer. This is because the GNC
hopes as many as people can join the activity and does not want
to destroy the eco-system in the area.
In1997 the GNC first visited Choybalsan in Mongolia to plant
trees. Since then, the GNC has sent groups for the activity every
summer. In the first year (1997), the GNC brought several kinds
of saplings (13 willows, 1 kg. Acacia, etc) from Japan to examine
what kinds of trees would be appropriate for the soil in the
area. From this experiment, we found out that willows would be
relatively suitable for the land. Therefore, in the second year
(1998) the GNC planted 150 saplings of willows. However, because
of the extremely cold winter (-41 degree Celsius ) in the year,
and because the saplings were too young and small to bear with
the severe weather, only 35 percent of the saplings are alive
now. This year (1999), we planted 140 saplings of willows.
However, this time those saplings have been taken care of for one
year, so they were already 1 meter tall. So that, even if a
freezing weather comes this winter, these saplings will be more
likely to survive. It will be quite shocking and depressing when
we find out the saplings we spent a lot of time and efforts in
planting are dead, so I am hoping that most of the saplings will
survive this time.
As noted above, Shariki village and the GNC spent a lot of time
and efforts to promote Mongolian agriculture. Are there really
reciprocated benefits from the investment? Is there really any
reasonable potentiality for Mongolian agriculture? Next, this
paper will explore the potentiality and importance of Mongolian
agriculture.
JICA* and the Ministry of agriculture in Mongolia reported a
number of potentialities and increasing-demand factors for
Mongolian agricultural development .
1) In big cities and among younger generations (under 30 yrs
old), there has been a preference transition from a traditional
dietary life (meats and milk are main) to an urban, modern style
(taking bread, vegetables, etc).
2) It is expected that the population will reach 300 million by
2010 and more people will come to Ulan Bator and other big cities
to look for jobs. People in the future are very likely to demand
the urban and modern style meals( including bread, vegetables).
The number of foreign tourists has been increasing since the
beginning of this decade. It will be almost definitely increasing
even more from now. Needless to say, those foreigners want to
have western style meals that have vegetables, breads, et c.
3) The Mongolian people's average intake of nutrition is way
below the standard that the Ministry of Health set. In 1993, the
average of people's intake of nutrition is only 62 percent of the
standard. Although the people's average intake of protein and fat
are 80% of the standard, carbohydrate is only 50% of it. For the
supply of carbohydrate, wheat, rice, potatoes, or other kinds of
grains will be more necessary in the future.
4) Finally, for many grains and vegetables Mongolia depends on
imports from China and Russia today. However, if Mongolia has a
capacity of supplying its agricultural crops from the domestic
farms, the country can save the foreign currencies she holds.
Thus, these are the development potentialities and expected
increasing-demands of Mongolian agriculture that are remarked by
the government and international organizations. Then, a next
thing one has to think about is how the government or
international organizations are able to make those potentialities
possible and real. In other words, what are the current problems
that Mongolian agriculture is confronting and that need to be
solved? For the final argument, this paper will examine those
questions.
Mongolian government claimed a number of reasons why Mongolian
agriculture has been stagnant or even declining .
1) Under the market economy system, the financial institutions in
Mongolia for supporting agriculture are poorly organized.
2) Due to the national low budget, Mongolia has difficulties in
maintaining its agricultural facilities and equipment, such as
irrigation systems, agricultural machines and fertilizers.
3) Related to #2, Mongolian agricultural machinery and materials
used to depend on imports or aids from the former Soviet and
other foreign countries. However, after the collapse of the
Soviet, the aids from Russia were cut off. Thus, this makes it
even harder to keep the materials and equipment only by Mongolian
financial system.
4) Generally speaking, there is a lack of people who are
interested in supporting agriculture in Mongolia. Furthermore,
there are not enough programs that educate and support people who
want to engage in agricultural work today.
5) Finally, the population is concentrated in urban areas (more
than 25% of the pop. are living in the capital.). And, the
transportation system in Mongolia is not developed, therefore
there is a big transportation problem of agricultural products
from rural areas (farms) to urban cities(market) .
From these difficulties Mongolian agriculture is facing, one can
think about the development plans.
First, a stable basic infrastructure system for the agricultural
development has to be established. For instance, the national
finances and private-owned financial institutions, which are
essential for agricultural development, need to be adjusted to be
stable.
In the second stage, after a stable infrastructure is
established, concrete development plans need to be made. A
relatively large sized agricultural facilities (e.g. irrigation
or maybe windbreaks), the marketing system, and the processing
industry needs to be repaired or reinforced. Furthermore, the
government needs to make abundant training programs for people
who are interested in engaging in agricultural activities.
In the final stage, after those development plans of the 2nd
stage have been made, a next thing Mongolian agriculture has to
seek for is "the drive to maturity ." Thus,
agricultural supplements and improvements have to be made and
people need to review what plans and programs have to be done and
what should be done in the future for a better or more efficient
agriculture. In addition, maybe experimental farms need to be
built for technological advancements to consider Mongolian
agriculture for next generations.
These development plans are just my ideas. Of course, there must
be other reasonable or better development plans for Mongolian
agriculture. Through this summer internship, I learned so much.
However, one important thing I realized was that there is not one
simple answer for development. When one thinks about development
of one country, there are countless factors to be deeply
concerned about, for instance, improvement of people's standard
of livings, health care system, maintenance of people's wealth
equality, environmental problems, endangered animals, etc. This
internship experience gave me a good chance to re-think about
what "development" is and what "development"
really means.
Bibliography
Gratzer, David. "Mongolia makes a radical journey from
Soviet past to free
market future." Financial Post; July 19, 1999
Imada, Tatsu, Geography in Asia. Dohosha Co., Tokyo: 1992
Isbister, John. Promises Not Kept. Kumarian Press, West Hartford:
1995
JICA, The Investigation of Mongolian Agriculture. Tokyo: 1995
JICA, The Reports of the rice field experiment in Choybalsan,
Mongolia.
JICA, Tokyo: 1995
JICA and the Ministry of Agriculture&Food in Mogolia, The
Reports of
Mongolian Agricultural Development Plan Investigations. JICA,
Tokyo:1994
Larry, Kathy, "Underworldly lives of orphans emerge out of
Mongolia,"
The Gazette (Montreal), B1, Montreal: March 19, 1999
Kawada, Hideyuki ed., Chikyu no aruki kata (How to walk on the
earth),
Diamond Big Co., Tokyo: 1999 July
'99 Summer Internship:
Forestation activity for Mongolian agriculture
Takuya Kondo
Journals
At the end of July, I went to Mongolia to join a forestation
project. The project was organized by a NGO called GNC (Global
Network for Coexistence). In the analysis paper, I talk about
Mongolian agriculture. So, in this journal, I will first talk
about GNC and next discuss other things (social issues) I noticed
during the volunteer work in Mongolia.
GNC (Global Network for Coexistence)
This organization was established fairly recently (in 1995). It
has various kinds of members, from students, housewives,
businesspeople to doctors. The main aim of going to Mongolia this
summer was forestation activity in Choybalsan city in Mongolia.
Due to the cut-off of financial aids from Russia since 1991,
Mongolia had a serious poverty problem. Therefore, in order to
improve such undesirable situations, Shariki village in Aomori
prefecture in Japan started to support agricultural activity in
Choybalsan by teaching their agricultural skills and sending
advanced agricultural machines. Although they succeeded in making
new crops (rice and various vegetables) in the area, there was a
big problem, the severe weather. There is a very strong wind from
Northwest that damages the crops in the area. Therefore, this is
why the GNC started to make windbreaks in the area.
The Urbanized Capital, Ulan Bator
On the airplane to Ulan Bator, I was imagining that Mongolia
would be like, unlimited green steppe, nomadic life, sheep,
horses, etc. When we arrived in Ulan Bator, however, I found out
my expectation was not quite right. Yes, there was a huge steppe
around the airport. But, a few seconds after, I found a very
urbanized area a few miles away. There were a big power station
and many tall buildings, apartments and houses. According to the
data here, the population of Mongolia is approximately 2.35
million and a quarter of the national population (650,000 people)
live in the capital, Ulan Bator . And, in summer another quarter
of the population come to Ulan Bator to look for short-term jobs.
This means that half of the population live in Ulan Bator every
summer. Three quarters of the whole national electric power is
consumed in Ulan Bator .
As one might expect, many of the buildings in the city are the
former Soviet style, very simple and made by concrete walls.
However, since the democratization in 1991 colorful,
well-designed buildings and apartments have been built. One more
surprising thing for me was that there were a number of nice,
classy, international restaurants, and cafes, ice cream stores.
In the city, you can enjoy so many different international meals.
There are French, American, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean,
Bulgarian, German, Turkish, etc. (The meals are very reasonable
and cheap. If you have a chance to visit here, you should try.)
Also, very recently several internet cafes have just opened in
the city. Many international restaurants and internet cafes? Is
there any demand for those places? Yes, our Mongolian interpreter
told us that the number of tourists has been increasing rapidly
after the democratization. In fact, when I walked on streets, I
saw a lot of foreign tourists; the number of tourists walking is
almost the same as Mongolian. They mostly came from Western
countries. They hang out around at those international
restaurants, internet cafes, and sightseeing places like national
museums.
So, I expected that tourism industry has a lot of potentiality
for the future development in Mongolia. My Mongolian friend, who
worked at the hotel we stayed in, told me that yes, more and more
tourists have been visiting Ulan Bator, however, they come visit
mostly in summer time. Indeed, the climate in Ulan Bator is far
from ideal for the tourism; in July the average temperature is
62.6 degree (highest in year) and in January it is -41degree
Celsius (coldest in year) . We went there in the end of July, but
still we felt a little cold and had to wear sweatshirts at night.
Choybalsan city
Choybalsan city is located about 600km east from Ulan Bator. This
is the city where we went to plant windbreaks for agricultural
activity. I will talk about the details in the analysis paper.
Choybalsan has been a central city in the eastern Mongolia since
a long time ago. The national hero, Choybalsan, was born in this
city, this is how the city is named. Since this city has mineral
resources, such as coals and uranium, a lot of money has been
invested by the government and foreign countries in this city .
Our Mongolian interpreter told us that the US also has recently
started to invest a great amount of money and tried to look for
gold and coals.
My first impression of Choybalsan city was gloomy and devastated.
On the way to the city from the airport, there were several tall
buildings that the Soviet military used in the past, but no one
uses them now. After the Soviet army retreated in 1990 , the
facilities they left, such as water pipes, apartments, military
base, nothing is used by the Mongolian residents now. Thus, those
buildings were just ruins. The government says that those
facilities will be re-built for Mongolian residents, but the plan
hasn't been started due to the lack of finance.
The Gap between Ulan Bator and Choybalsan
Unlike Ulan Bator, Choybalsan is not developed very much. Well,
compared to other cities, Choybalsan is a relatively big city
still. However, the infrastructure in the city is not well
facilitated. There are roads mainly in the downtown like 3 or 4
km. Thus, cars run on mostly steppe areas. So many of cars are
jeeps, because natural steppe roads have a lot of bumps*. There
is no phone at any hotel in the city, no need to say about
Mongolian residences. If you want to make a call, there is one
small house in the city where you can ask for phone service.
Unlike Ulan Bator, where internet cafes are easily accessible,
Choybalsan has almost no telecommunication service. To look for
jobs and convenience, more and more people move to Ulan Bator.
Some people go to Ulan Bator just over summer to make some money
and bring back clothes, electric appliances, etc. There is no
place where people can buy foreign goods except food in
Choybalsan. Even essential daily goods, such as shampoo, soaps,
toothbrushes, it's hard to find and even if there are, it's quite
expensive to get in Choybalsan.
Social Issues after the Democratization
Because recently the US and other foreign countries purchased
coal mines and pay US dollars to Mongolian workers after the
adoption of capitalistic economy, now Choybalsan has a
materialistic atmosphere that people are greedy for money. On the
other hand, the unemployment rate has been rising, and in the
city there are many depressed people who can't find a job. So,
some people go to bars and get drunk even in the day time and
pick up quarrels with others on streets. At night time, I could
hear that some Mongolian guys were fighting and yelling from
outside of the hotel. Furthermore, when I was walking on streets
both in Choybalsan and Ulan Bator, I noticed that there were so
many broken pieces of green Mongolian beer bottles on the ground.
And, in Choybalsan many kids walk and run to play on such streets
with bare feet. I wondered how those kids were able to walk and
run without getting hurt. I got sad that drunk Mongolian adults
were apathetic about such things.
Another surprising thing I saw in Ulan Bator was homeless kids
called "street children." When we were eating at an
American-style restaurant, several homeless children came to us
and begged us for money. I told him that I didn't have money and
I was sorry but I couldn't give them money. After a while, other
several homeless kids kept coming and asking us for money. I
wondered how many kids there were doing such things. After we
left the restaurant, when we were walking on streets, I saw a
"street children" group (7 or 8 kids) asking western
tourists for money. And, after a while I noticed that some
manhole covers were open. I wondered why and asked other people.
They told me that those "street children" live in the
manholes and at night they come up and beg foreigner money. The
inside of manhole protects them from coldness and wind.
There are various reasons for this social phenomenon. First, due
to the chaos after the adoption of free market economy,
unemployment people have increased, and they cannot afford to
send their children to schools. The number of unemployed workers
of 1994 in Mongolia is 71,912; the unemployment rate is about 18%
. Second, in 1995 spring, the inflation rate rapidly rose up and
teachers at elementary and secondary schools went on strike and
many schools got closed. Third, many educational facilities like
children library became bars, pubs or governmental buildings.
Forth, with foreign tourists' increase, parents began to make
their children beg foreigners for money, wash cars, sell
souvenir, and steal money . And, finally the cause of children
going to the street is divorce. Despondent parents neglect and
abuse the stepchildren, eventually driving them away . Many
families are in deep trouble. About 36 percent of the population
is under the poverty line of $12 a month .
There are the social problems I found during staying in Mongolia.
These problems were mostly caused by the rapid adoption of
democracy and market economy system. The gap between urban and
rural areas, unemployment issue, increasing crime rate, and
street-children, all these social problems are portraying how
Mongolia's economic reform has unfairly been benefitting to the
people. In a sense, Mongolia is a new country that recently
started to adopt capitalism economy, thus it is not too late to
face those social problems and improve the situations.