Lesson 3 The Power of Helping Others
A Korean Chief in Nigeria
There ____ a Korean man who became the chief of a Nigerian tribe for making huge contributions to Nigeria’s agriculture and economy. Here is his story.
Dr. Hahn is an agriculturist ____ specialized in plant breeding.
Growing up right after the Korean war, ____ knew what it was like to be hungry, and he wanted to help people in need.
In 1971, he was given two opportunities: work for Cambridge University or ____ the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria.
On ____ way to Cambridge for a job interview, he first stopped in Nigeria.
There, he saw the country had ____ destroyed by a civil war.
More than 2 million people had died, ____ more than half a million people were starving.
Dr. Hahn wanted to rescue Nigerians ____ hunger.
So, he ____ his family and moved to Nigeria.
When Dr. Hahn ____ there, he learned that the staple food in Nigeria was a plant called cassava.
Unfortunately, cassava was defenseless against viral and bacterial ____ so it did not yield much crop.
Knowing this, he decided ____ develop stronger cassava varieties with higher yields.
However, Dr. Hahn faced a problem: ____ was not much information available about cassava.
Cassava was rarely studied or developed ____ it was not a cash crop.
To make matters worse, he had never seen or eaten cassava ____
While studying African cassava, Dr. Hahn found out ____ the Europeans who colonized Brazil had first brought cassava into Africa.
He immediately flew to ____ to study the original cassava.
There, he learned about it and went back to Nigeria with Brazilian ____ seeds.
____ Dr. Hahn traveled to every corner of Nigeria and collected different types of local cassava to see if they were good at fighting diseases, but they weren’t.
Fortunately, he found a plant that was similar to cassava but resistant to ____
He started crossing ____ plant with the Brazilian cassava.
After five years of hard work, ____ Hahn finally succeeded in developing new varieties of cassava.
They yielded much more ____ the local ones and could survive diseases.
Another obstacle
Another obstacle Dr. Hahn faced was ____ the new varieties.
Local farmers ____ not listen to a foreigner.
To overcome this problem, Dr. Hahn visited markets, churches, and schools and gave out ____ new varieties to Nigerian people for free.
He went from one house to the next to let farmers know the superiority of these new ____
Sometimes he planted them in the middle of the cassava field without ____ the farmers.
His colleagues were concerned that ____ farmers might be angry to find different cassava in their fields.
However, Dr. Hahn insisted that the farmers would think that ____ was a gift from God.
He was right. The farmers soon realized the superiority of the new varieties, and more and more ____ started to cultivate them.
____ to the new cassava, fewer people were starving.
In fact, they could even make more ____ by selling the remaining cassava.
Eventually, Nigeria became the country that produced the greatest amount of cassava ____ the world.
In 1983, the Yoruba, a major tribe ____ Nigeria, honored Dr. Hahn as a chief with the title “Seriki Agbe” or “the King of Farmers.”
In ____ to cassava, Dr. Hahn developed other major foods, including yam, sweet potato, and banana.
Soon, other African countries ____ for his help.
Dr. Hahn traveled ____ these countries to teach local farmers and scholars how to grow these new varieties.
He spent 23 years developing and distributing the new cassava ____ to the whole continent.
Although he left Nigeria in 1994, he is still remembered as one of the greatest scientists who fought ____ starvation in Africa.
Dr. Hahn once said, “If ____ have faith that what you do will benefit humanity, I believe that you must sacrifice yourself.
____ if I were to go back to the past, I would still do the same thing.”