Luong Dinh Cua, the Top Agronomist of Vietnam

It has been more than 20 years since Luong Dinh Cua passed away, but his scientific works in breeding high-yield rice and fruit varieties are still mentioned nowadays by the scientific circle. As an agronomist who is broadly known both at home and abroad, he made a large contribution to the agricultural development of Vietnam. He was awarded the honourable title of Hero of Labour and the Ho Chi Minh Prize.

Luong Dinh Cua was born on August 16, 1920 in Dai Ngai commune, Long Phu district, Soc Trang province. His father was Luong An Hung and his mother was Huynh Thi Co, both of whom were intellectuals.

Cua went to a Taberd Church School in the provincial town of Soc Trang in his childhood. After finishing primary school, he went to Saigon and again he learnt at a Taberd church school. At 13, when he was at school in Saison, his father passed away, and his mother joined his father one year later.

Luong Dinh Cua did excellent studies and he got a full bachelor’s degree when he was 17. After the death of his parents, his uncle continued to pay for his studies. Finishing his studies in Saigon, Cua travelled to Hong Kong to further his studies.

When he was in Hong Kong in 1937, he studied at the Medical University and began to learn English. He ranks second in the class when he was at the Medical University. After the third year, he no longer wanted to pursue a medical career and he went to Shanghai (China) and studied at the Economic University. In 1941, owing to the war in China, the University was closed and he had to abandon his studies. Luong Dinh Cua was unable to contact his relatives at home, all funding for his studies was interrupted and he decided to go to Japan. From then he had to live on his own.

As Cua had an yearning for studying agronomy long ago, he applied to the agricultural faculty of the Kyushu University as soon as he arrived in Japan. He had a good command of Japanese after one year of studies. His intelligence was highly valued and he was exceptionally approved straightaway for the third year’s studies at the agriculture faculty of the University.

In 1945, Luong Dinh Cua got married to Nakamura Nobuko, a student of a girls’ university. He was 25, and his wife was 23 that year.

After their marriage, the couple worked at the Experimental Institute of the Kuyshu University. Later, Luong Dinh Cua enrolled a course on breeding in Kyoto.

Luong Dinh Cua studied very hard and did scientific research specialising in cytology. He graduated with high distinction for agronomy. He was the 96^th person to receive this honorary title in the past ten centuries in Japan up till that time. The Japanese government then gave him a professorship at the Kuyshu University. The couple and their two sons led a luxurious life in Japan. However, someone kept inviting him to teach or work at research institutes in the United States or in the Philippines where he was promised a much better life.

But both Luong Dinh Cua and his wife were very much longing for Vietnam. He secretly selected high-yield paddy seeds, put them in a suitcase and waited for the opportunity to go back home.

In 1952, the couple and their sons set out their way home. As planned, they would go to Viet Bac (Northern Vietnam), but all their luggage got lost in Hong Kong except the suitcase with paddy seeds inside. Being unable to return to Japan, Luong Dinh Cua sent a message to Mr Truong Van Hi who was his classmate when they were in Hong Kong. With Mr Hi’s assistance, Luong Dinh Cua’s family temporarily settled in Saigon. Being aware of Luong Dinh Cua’s presence in Saigon, the local French-backed government sent their people to make contact with him. They made a lot of promises hinting that an agricultural institute would be set up in My Tho province and put under Luong Dinh Cua’s management. Others invited him to hold this or that position. Making excuses for his incomplete understanding of the situation, he declined all the offers and only contracted a job with the Ministry of Agriculture.

Soon afterward, Luong Dinh Cua secretly contacted the resistance through a revolutionary activist who worked with him in the same office. In December 1954, the Party Committee of Saigon - Gia Dinh sent someone to take him to the liberated area. Luong Dinh Cua and his family were then repatriated to the North Vietnam.

In 1955, Luong Dinh Cua worked with the Quang Trung paddy team under the Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Research.

In September 1956, the University of Agriculture and Forestry opened its first academic course and Luong Dinh Cua was one of the first people to make a contribution to the development of the University in the capacity of vice rector.

Being a famous scientist, Luong Dinh Cua kept working in a modest room. Out of teaching hours, he rolled up his trousers and waded through the experimental muddy fields.

Through the practical research, Luong Dinh Cua confirmed that in water paddy cultivation techniques, appropriate watering and irrigation systems constituted the minimal condition for intensive farming, yield increase and soil protection and enrichment.

Luong Dinh Cua was the first to creatively apply foreign experience, mainly from Japan, to paddy cultivation.

From 1962 to 1967, he was the vice director of the Institute of Agricultural Science. Being one of the top experts of Vietnam and a prestigious scientist in the circle of agricultural scientists of a number of countries on breeding, he made large contribution to this field. His first rice hybrid and also first rice hybrid in Vietnam was "Agriculture No. 1" which was created by cross-breeding the Ba Thac variety of Vietnam with the Bunco variety of Japan by "long geographical distance breeding" method. This hybrid was most suitable to rotational and additional crops (mainly for the Summer - Autumn crop in the North in the early 1960s).

In the late 1960s, the "Green Revolution" began in the North Vietnam with new rice varieties which were usually referred to as the "stunt genes". The typical variety for intensive farming was IR8 (also known as Agriculture No.8). Luong Dinh Cua used this variety for the selection of seeds. He was able to isolate this variety into 1000 lines and selected line number 388 to contribute to breeding IR8 which has been cultivated until these days with average yield of 4.6 tones per hectare and helped increase rice production by millions of tones.

Luong Dinh Cua was conferred the honourable title of Hero of Agricultural Labour at the Congress of Heroes and Emulation Fighters for National Salvation in late December 1966.

On December 28, 1975, Luong Dinh Cua suddenly fell ill and passed away. Later he was conferred the First Class Labour Order.

Up till now, the agricultural scientific circle, the farmers and the consumers affectionately call a number of Luong Dinh Cua’s hybrids "Mr Cua’s rice varieties", "Mr Cua’s potato" and "Mr Cua’s melon", The seeds of his heart and mind are now greening in the fields.

By Hoai Anh