Keiji Nishioka

Dasho Keiji Nishioka (, Nishioka Keiji; 14 February 193321 March 1992) was a Japanese botanist. He was dispatched to the Kingdom of Bhutan by the Japanese Government to help modernise the Bhutanese agricultural sector. Nishioka worked in Bhutan as an agriculture expert for 28 years, from 1964 till his death in 1992. Nishioka's work helped improve the cultivation of rice and vegetables in Bhutan's Paro and Zhemgang dzongkhags (districts). He also participated in civic infrastructure development efforts in Zhemgang.

Early life Keiji Nishioka was born to Tatsuzo Nishioka and Toshie Nishioka in Keijō, Korea, Empire of Japan, on 14 February 1933. He was the oldest of four children. In Seoul, then called Keijou, he attended Sakuragaoka Primary School.

The family moved to Osaka, Japan, after the Japanese defeat in the Second World War and the subsequent decolonisation of Korea. In Osaka, Nishioka studied in Yao Junior High School. In 1952, Nishioka entered the Naniwa University to study agriculture. In 1959 he married Satoko Nikai, of Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture. The couple had two children. The Prime Minister (Lyonchhen) of Bhutan at the time, Jigme Palden Dorji, asked Nakao for an agricultural expert to help Bhutan modernise its agricultural sector. This problem was solved when Bhutan joined the Colombo Plan in 1962 and thus became entitled to receive aid from other member states in the Plan, which included Japan. The farm was successful, growing in size and profitability, even supplying food to guests at the 1974 coronation of the Fourth Druk Gyalpo (King) of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck.

The region around the present-day village of Sonamthang in Zhemgang was converted from forest to 146 acres of paddy fields on Nishioka's orders. At the end of Bhutan's Fourth Five-Year Plan, 65 households whose members had contributed to the clearing and cultivation of the region were awarded land there, creating Sonamthang village.

Nishioka's efforts led to an increase in the standards of living of people in Zhemgang, reportedly improving communities' self-sufficiency in foodgrains. He was the first foreigner to have received the title Dasho. He was posthumously awarded the Druk Thugsey medal, the highest civilian award in Bhutan, in 1999. In Panbang, he is remembered as 'Japan sahib ' among the elderly. A suspension bridge in Panbang—the Nishioka zam—is named after him.

In Paro, a Buddhist stupa called the Dasho Nishioka chorten, is dedicated to Nishioka. In June 2014, on the completion of fifty years' cooperation between Japan and Bhutan, a museum was inaugurated in Paro in Nishioka's memory.