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PROFILE |
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| Title |
Multipurpose seed drill: An open source Chinese innovation
Lü Shengzhan |
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| Abstract |
Lu Shengzhan has not only excelled in developing a seed drill and many other machines but also has donated his innovation for the community benefit instead of licensing it to a company for commercial diffusion. Despite the increasing role of markets and private profit, we continue to find such innovators with the sole purpose of creating public goods. Recognition by the Provincial Science and Technology Bureau shows that Chinese institutions are ahead of India. We rarely find examples of grassroots innovators being entrusted with the responsibility for spreading new kinds of innovation education among children for the farmers. His role in creating a local collective to help innovators in filing patents or commercialization of their technologies deservedly got him recognition as a ‘top ten life touching person’. May this spirit grow and diffuse globally. |
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| Details |
The Hua County
Hua County has a tradition of innovations since the people here had to manage the periodic floods caused by the Yellow River. In addition, during time of war, the high dikes of the Yellow River were sometimes deliberately broken in order to flood the path of advancing enemy troops. All these together caused frequent disasters and prolonged economic hardships. The local people therefore survived through innovations of agriculture implements and production methods. Long winter periods (October to March) and heavy rain spells, gave farmers free time to carry out innovations. Daokou town, the site of Hua County government now, was historically a ferry port on the Yellow River and became a prosperous trading town. The local population used exposure to the external world to learn new ideas and innovate. These innovations were then marketed in the town. It is
one of the important grain producing areas of China. His county’s climate is humid with abundant rainfall, which is suitable for the growth of wheat, corn, soya-bean, peanut, cotton, sweet potato, and so on.
Innovation
Lü Shengzhan (b 1972) was a restless child. “He broke open many things at home” says his father. In 1988, Lü failed the college entrance exam and began to study agriculture in the third Vocational High School of Hua County. He signed up for a seed-breeding group set up in 1989 in the school and became interested in agriculture implements because of practical activities in the experimental field. Influenced by Chen Hua, who retired from China Cotton Association, Lü often did field research, during which he found that traditional tools were too time-consuming and laborious. Consequently, he decided to improve them or invent practical ones. He found that although small tractors were quite popular in the rural area, farmers still used traditional human or animal-drawn three-leg low efficiency wooden seed plough. So he decided to invent a small seed drill that can be used with small tractors.
Development
Arranging for money was difficult but 18-year old Lü did not give up. Instead, he bought a lot of machinery books to gain knowledge. He went to machinery plants nearby to learn from experienced workers. Then he began to design the small seed drill that could be used with tractors. Lü used to work on it after school. He used radish, sweet potato and clay to make the model parts since money was a problem. Later, his school supported him with 12000 Yuan.
After over two months of experiments and improvements, Lü finally invented a “six-line suspension type seed drill” which could be used with tractors for sowing purposes. But later he found that seeds were sown unevenly. This depressed him greatly. His teachers and classmates encouraged him and Lü finally overcame this shortcoming by improvising on the drill. As a result, seeds could now be sown evenly and the efficiency was five times higher than that of a traditional wood drill used for manually sowing grain. Lü used 7.5 kg of seeds per Mu (about 666.67 m2) when the traditional wooden drill used 15 kg for a wheat crop. Thus, his invention not only reduced labour intensity and improved working efficiency but also saved wheat seeds. Although this seed drill increased sowing speed greatly, only six lines of seeds could be sown at a time. And it was only applicable for wheat. Besides, it could only be used in row sowing but not in hole sowing, especially in wheat field inter-planting. So farmers still had to use shovels, which was time-consuming and laborious.
Diffusion and Influence
The “Six-line suspension type seed drill” won the first prize for a provincial invention and was mass produced quickly and sold throughout Chinese rural areas. Lü donated it to the country. According to Lü, this kind of seed drill is still used in many provinces of China and even other developing countries.
Lü began to develop a hill-drop seeder in 1991 and was successful after several months. It was named “89-A type multifunctional hill-drop seeder”. In 1991, Lü’s hill-drop seeder won the gold medal in the sixth national invention exhibition held in Xi’an. After the exhibition, some enterprises were willing to give a good price to buy out his technology but Lü declined politely. He thought, if any company bought his innovation, it would monopolize the product and thereby increase its price in the market. If the technology was freely accessible to anyone interested in producing the machine then the product cost could remain low to the benefit of the farmers. A freely available technology could be diffused faster than a product monopolized by a single company. Hence, he also donated this innovation to the country. His hill-drop seeder became very popular and sold well all over China and even in other developing countries from 1992 onwards.
On coming back from Xi’an, Lü Shengzhan, his inventions were promoted throughout the county. His success evinced interest from the agricultural department of Hua County. A vice-head of the county heard of his story and advised Lü to go to Zhengzhou to apply for patents and said the government would provide him financial support. Hence, Lü went to Zhengzhou several times and finally obtained the first two patents of his life. From then on, Lü’s journey in the field of inventions picked up and by now he holds more than 10 patents.
Social Diffusion, Personal Career: Making a Trade Off
To reward Lü’s special contribution to society, the government offered him a chance to select between a job and further study in college. Lü chose the former. At first, the fresh high-school graduated Lü was given a stable job in the County Science and Technology Bureau. But before he worked there, the county education bureau appointed him as a science and technology instructor of the Third Vocational High School of Hua County, in which Lü himself studied once. He was on loan to the County Association of Science and Technology in 1998 because the local government expected Lü could contribute more to the diffusion of innovation knowledge among the masses. In 2001, he was appointed to work in the County Science and Technology Bureau.
Lü found that he himself had benefited from his inventions and so had many poor villagers. He had by then realized that innovation was easy for anyone if he/she applied scientific know-how. But, both the patenting and the further commercialization process were difficult. Lü, therefore, realized the need of setting up an organization to help the local innovators with patent applications. In July, 2001, Lü and Wang Haoqin launched the Hua County AOI with an initial membership of 80. So far, the association has taken in 12 collective members and over 200 individual members, mainly from among students and farmers.
Besides finding Lü a job, the Hua County government appointed Lü as a junior leader in charge of culture, education and health issues in the County Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in 2005. Thereafter, he was also elected as a member of Anyang City CPPCC in 2006. While the AOI gained importance in the County, Lü himself received various honorary titles, such as one of the “Top Ten Life-touching Persons of Anyang 33”. This award is given to ten persons in the city for touching the lives of ordinary people through their activities.
Lü donated his innovation to the community instead of selling it to a company. He had a choice as most people do. He made a decision to create public goods and put the community over profit, despite missing out on personal earnings. The Honey Bee Network salutes his spirit.
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee 22(4) & 23(1) 31-32, 2012 |
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