China promotes hybrid rice for world food security
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-04-15 10:26

China's hybrid rice technologies will help build the world's food security with higher yield potential by using less farmland and diversifying agricultural production, said agronomists and agricultural officials.

Some Chinese researchers hold that they have found an effective way to resolve the world's grain issue and increase farmers' income in developing countries through exporting its crossbred rice technologies.

"To those needy countries with inadequate arable land and growing population, China's hybrid rice technologies promise great potential to raise their grain output," said Liang Anqiong, deputy director of the southern breeding office of rice under the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture.

Liang made the remarks at a new hybrid rice varieties exhibition set to open Thursday in Sanya, a coastal city of China's southernmost Hainan island province.

Liang said China has maintained its lead in the world's research on crossbreeding rice technologies with two of its new rice varieties reaching a maximum output of 1.5 tons per hectare.

Excluding the hybrid sown in China. the acreage of hybrid rice has reached nearly one million hectares worldwide, chiefly in Asian countries like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines and Vietnam, according to the statistics by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

China decided to showcase its new hybrid rice species from April 14-16 in Hainan, dubbed as "paradise for agricultural research", hoping to push its hybrid rice varieties to a greater world's market.

The exhibition will feature 154 newly cross-bred rice varieties from around China and 13 species in comparative experiments from the United States.

The event is expected to promote the growth of hybrid rice technology and related information exchange across the world, according to officials from the organization committee of the exhibition.

Yuan Longping, credited with developing the world's first successful and widely grown hybrid rice variety, will make a major presentation at the show.

In late March, Professor Yuan was named one of the co-winners of the 2004 World Food Prize for his contribution to the world food security and rice production, an prize cited as one of the greatest honors in agriculture worldwide.

A major world rice producer, China expects to see its acreage under rice expand by four percent to 28.23 million hectares this year, and produce 177 million tons of rice, a growth of seven percent over the previous year.

The FAO's statistics show the hybrid rice yields more than 15 percent to 20 percent, or one ton higher than ordinary rice strains.

Rice is currently the major staple food for 3 billion people on earth.

Though China's rice growing areas fell from 36.5 million hectares in 1975 to 30.5 million hectares in 2000, the country can still feed its 1.3 population with enough food, a feat, scientists believe, partly attributed to the hybrid rice technologies.

However, the shrinking grain growing acreage these years has also drawn concern from the state and government leaders.

Earlier this month, President Hu Jintao underlined during an inspection tour of northwest China's Shaanxi province the importance of grain farming and urged all local governments to implement fully the central policies of raising grain production and farmers' income.

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