Edward Hewitt Nichols
Edward Hewitt Nichols CBE JP, was a British colonial agriculture and aquaculture official. Having served in Sierra Leone, he then worked in Hong Kong, where, from December 1965 to January 1980, he was the director of the territory's Agriculture and Fisheries Department. From October 1976 to January 1980, he was a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. He was a major proponent of country parks in Hong Kong. He was also a regulator, and promoter, of cooperatives and credit unions.
Nichols graduated from Newcastle University, Queens' College, and the University of the West Indies, majoring in agriculture. In 1947, he joined the Colonial Office. He was sent to Sierra Leone and became director of agriculture there. Later, he was promoted to senior director in 1954 and head director in 1957. He mainly researched rice plantation. He participated in the production of Zoo Quest.
In 1959, Nichols went to Hong Kong to become the assistant director of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department. In December 1965, he replaced Jack Cater as the director. During his term, the agriculture and aquaculture industry was negatively affected by urbanisation and to address this, he actively promoted agriculture mechanisation and provided incentives to the industry to sustain production. To satisfy high demand of fish, he encouraged and supported Hong Kong fishermen to expand their operations and promoted replacing wind-powered ships with mechanised ones to increase efficiency. The gross domestic product of the industry increased from million HKD to billion HKD across his term.
In the early 1970s, Nichols called for awareness of importance of nature conservation, warning Hong Kong people not to "only care about short-term economic benefits while ignoring that we will be criticised in the future". Murray MacLehose, upon being appointed as the governor of Hong Kong, actively investigated designating country parks and in 1976 the Hong Kong government passed the Country Parks Ordinance and Nichols became the head director of the Country Park Management Centre and the head chairperson of the Country and Marine Parks Board. Within four years, the Agriculture and Fisheries Department designated country parks covering % of the land in Hong Kong. Nichols was also responsible for building infrastructure for country parks and setting foundations for the early operation of country parks. In 1980, the United Kingdom awarded him the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in recognition of his work in promoting the agriculture and aquaculture industry and developing country parks.
Biography
Early life
Edward Nichols was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 29 December 1925. His father was Edward E. Nichols and his mother was Mary Hewitt. He was educated in Newcastle University and later in Durham University in October 1924. He majored in agriculture. In June 1945, he was admitted a Bachelor of Science. In October 1945, he pursued further studies in Queens' College and obtained a diploma in agricultural science. In October 1946, he went to Port of Spain to study in University of the West Indies. In July 1947, he obtained an associate fellow degree.Colonial career
In September 1947, Nichols was hired by the Colonial Office and joined the Sierra Leone colonial government to work as the director of agriculture in Njala, Moyamba. In 1951, he participated in the production of Zoo Quest. In January 1954, he was promoted to senior director of agriculture. From 1955 to 1957, he worked as the manager of a rice research centre in Rokupr and conducted large-scale rice plantation research projects. In December 1957, he was promoted to head director of agriculture, responsible for mechanising rice plantation in northern provinces of Sierra Leone. He acquired fluent use of the Temne language after working in Sierra Leone for twelve years. From 1956 to 1958, he was the assistant superintendent of police in Njala, Moyamba.In February 1959, he moved to Hong Kong to become the assistant director of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department. He oversaw two renames of the department in 1960 and 1964. He mainly managed agricultural affairs. He participated in several international agriculture meetings. They include attending the Food and Agriculture Organization Rice Committee meeting twice respectively representing the Hong Kong government in Sri Lanka in December 1959 and the British government in Manila in December 1964; and attending a local policy meeting while staying in Manila. In July 1965, he went to London to attend the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux review meeting, representing Hong Kong and other territories. In addition, he was appointed the director of the department multiple times. From June 1960 to October 1960, June 1961 to October 1961, and April 1963 to October 1963, he was the director of the department.
Director of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department
Development of agriculture and aquaculture
In December 1965, Nichols succeeded Jack Cater as the director of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department. He was also the director of the Marketing Organization and the registrar of cooperatives. In April 1966, he was officially the director. In August 1966, he was appointed as a justice of the peace. During his term, the agriculture and aquaculture industry was facing many challenges. From the 1970s, as the Hong Kong government started to develop new towns in the New Territories, agricultural land use was reduced and abandoned rural land began to appear. With urbanisation, rural dwellers moved to urban areas, reducing manpower in the rural areas. Meanwhile, the production costs of agriculture and aquaculture rose while profits diminished. The 1970s energy crisis and competition from imports from Mainland China and other places also negatively impacted the industry.File:1973_Fanling_Lodge.jpg|left|thumb|The surrounding of Fanling Lodge has a lot of arable land.
Nichols thought the agriculture and aquaculture industries were not completely self-sustaining, but had a certain importance. Therefore, he proposed using discreet policies to support the industry. He frequently visited rural areas to oversee development of the industry and attended local activities to foster public relationships. He also emphasised agriculture mechanisation. Through the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Loan Fund and J.E. Joseph Trust Fund, he provided loans to farmers to increase productivity and efficiency. He also held vocational training classes to improve production means. In cooperation with the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association, the Agriculture and Fisheries Department also distributed equipment such as pesticides to increase production.
Meanwhile, as urban areas developed, Nichols oversaw the decline of rice planting in Hong Kong. The area of rice fields had decreased from hectares in 1965 to hectares in 1975 and hectares in 1978. In the late 1970s, the rice industry almost disappeared. Jasmine rice farming was gone by the 1980s. To help farmers switch jobs, he encouraged them to farm vegetables and pigs. Before he became director, he had already established Operation Feedbag in cooperation with Care USA to provide interest-free loans to local pig farmers. Apart from promoting mechanisation, he co-organised farming exhibitions to promote local farm produce to improve farming infrastructure. Examples include spending HKD on an irrigation plan in Pat Heung, setting up -feet-long water pipes starting from Ho Pui Reservoir connecting Ho Pui, Ma On Kong, Tai Wo, Tai Kek, Cheung Po, and other areas in order to irrigate square metres of farmland, providing a stable irrigation water supply for vegetable farmers in Pat Heung.
The demand for fish was traditionally high for Hong Kong people. According to statistics, in 1974, – kg of fish was eaten per person globally, but it was – kg for Hong Kong people, which is far higher than the global average and is only surpassed by Iceland, Portugal, and Japan. To satisfy fish demand, Nichols encouraged development of the aquaculture industry. He also encouraged Hong Kong people to consume mesopelagic fish and fish from foreign waters to supplement the deficit in demersal fish and fish from local waters. In particular, due to technical and knowledge restrictions, although the South China Sea had many mesopelagic fish, they were rarely exploited. In light of this, Nichols encouraged the aquaculture industry to exploit ocean resources there. Through working in the United Nations South China Aquaculture Development Planning Committee, he helped local fishers discover additional fishing grounds. Apart from providing loans to fishermen, he also subsidised the large-scale replacement of traditional fishing boats with motorised ones in conjunction with the plan of exploiting mesopelagic fish. He also paid attention to educating children of fishermen, increasing the number of schools for them to and setting up practical secondary schools and other scholarships to support the long-term development of the industry.
During Nichols' -year term as the director of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department from 1965 to 1980, the population of Hong Kong increased from million to million. In the same period, the working population increased from million to million, but those in the aquaculture industry decreased from thousand to thousand, and the percentage relative to the working population decreased from % to %. The GDP percentage of the local aquaculture industry decreased from % to %, the GDP increasing from million HKD in 1965 to billion HKD in 1980. In the same period, vegetable production annually increased from thousand metric tons to thousand metric tons, though the market share decreased slightly from % to %. Local pig production annually increased from thousand to thousand, with the market share staying around % to %. Local poultry production annually increased from million to million, with market share increasing from about % to almost %. Fresh fish sold through the Fish Marketing Organisation annually increased from thousand metric tons to thousand metric tons, with market share staying above %. Considering Hong Kong's status as a high population density city, the agriculture and aquaculture industry reached levels of developed countries like Japan and the United Kingdom in terms of self-sustainability.
In other areas, the local agriculture and aquaculture significantly developed. From 1965 to 1980, the Hong Kong government's aquaculture and agriculture funds increased respectively from million HKD and million HKD to million HKD and million HKD. Granted aquaculture and agriculture loans annually increased respectively from million HKD and million HKD to million HKD and million HKD. Under Nichols' effort, the number of wind-powered fishing boats decreased from to, while that of motorised fishing boats increased from to. By 1980, the number of farmers using cultivators was more than, while the number of farms with automatic irrigation was almost.