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This enchanting hideaway is set around the attractively revamped city of Guilin, in the heart of rural Guangxi Province. Yangshuo, a little to the south, makes for a low-key introduction to the area, and offers a ­picture-postcard view of what is, to many, the essence of this vast country in which 60% of the population still live on the land. Water buffaloes toil in paddies amidst towering limestone outcrops and the landscape seems to come fresh from a scroll painting. A number of China's ethnic groups can be found in Guangxi, as indicated by its long-winded official moniker, Guangxi Zhuang Au

The Guangxi Subtropical Crops Research Institute (GSCRI) began their cassava varietal introduction and improvement program in 1981. Since 1985, GSCRI has introduced cassava hybrid seeds as well as promising clones by tissue culture from CIAT/Colombia, from the Thai CIAT program, as well as from other institutes. Through continuous selection and experiments, several promising clones, such as SM1113-1, SM1600-1, CM5443-1, SM1741-8 etc. have been identified, and these have been tested to a certain extent in on-farm trials. Since their release and dissemination these clones have awakened great interest by both farmers and starch factories. Some of them have now spread to other provinces. In China, high yield and high starch content of cassava varieties are still the most important factors in raising the comprehensive benefits resulting from cassava production. This is also the only way to change the stagnated position of cassava production, which in the past increased mainly by increasing the area planted. At the moment, many local governments of the principal cassava growing areas are conscious of this and have started to spend money on the introduction and dissemination of new higher-yielding varieties.