IN May this year, Miarimbola Andrianjatovo Miray Fifaliana, a 23-year-old Madagascan student, found herself in the rice fields of Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, taking video footage of farmers planting seeds.

As an international student majoring in international Chinese language education at Southwest University, she was participating in a program called “Looking China” that invited 12 foreigners to make documentaries recording their connections with the mountainous city.

Although she has never done any farm work, Fifaliana chose to point the camera at a rice plantation in Changhong Village, Dazu District. In her view, rice farming reflects the friendship between China and Madagascar.

Madagascar devotes most of its arable land to rice cultivation. However, due to the low yields of local rice, the country once relied heavily on imports to feed its tens of millions of people.

In 2007, the team of Yuan Longping, the “father of hybrid rice,” introduced hybrid rice to Madagascar, raising the output from 3 tons to 10 tons per hectare.

“The high yield of hybrid rice has provided our people with better lives,” said Fifaliana.

To her surprise, while shooting the documentary, she met a researcher named Luo Zhiqiang who visited Tananarive, the capital of Madagascar, in 2014 and helped local people plant hybrid rice.

“In the beginning, we felt it was difficult for us to grow high-yield rice because of the arduous environment,” said Luo, recalling the hardships at that time.

However, Luo feels proud of his work in Madagascar, seeing that it has borne fruit and received recognition both from the people and government there.

The researcher noted that the new version of the Madagascan banknote bears a pattern in the form of Chinese hybrid rice, a kind gesture to show that Madagascar values China’s help.

When Yuan Longping passed away in May 2021, Fanomezantsoa Lucien Ranarivelo, the then Madagascar minister of agriculture, livestock and fisheries, published a message of condolence showing the people’s sadness. “It’s a great loss for China and humanity,” he said on Yuan’s passing.

Fifaliana said her work on the documentary was made more meaningful by the various bonds she made in the process.

“Madagascan students feel that learning Chinese is promising for their future,” said Fifaliana.(Xinhua)