Hybrid rice to popularize on global scale

China developed its first hybrid rice in the 1970s, which helped raise its food grain output on a significant scale, and contributed to some Asian and African nations in ending their grain deficiency to some extent.

Professor Yuan Rongping, director of the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center (CNHRRDC), and known as a "father of the hybrid rice", started working on hybrid rice in 1964 and developed the world's first hybrid rice and, in 1976, hybrid rice began spreading on a large scale in China, which was the first nation to succeed in taking advantages of different hybrid rice species. Hybrid rice is also called the "Oriental Magic Rice" for its higher per-hectare yields than that for conventional rice seeds.

The hybrid rice was transferred as China's first agro-technology patent to the United States in 1979 and, since 1995 the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have selected a total of 15 countries for assistance funding to popularize hybrid rice. FAO first introduced the large acreage hybrid rice growing to India and Vietnam.

In their talks with their Chinese counterparts, leaders of Southeast Asian nations often asked China to help them with hybrid rice technology for bilateral agricultural cooperation. In May 2000, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo inspected China's fine hybrid rice species exhibition field nursed by Chinese experts, and she soon urged her people to grow hybrid rice. Hence, Professor Yuan was invited to visit the country twice as guests of the Philippine government.

The UNFAO invited Professor and Academician Yuan as chief consultant for the FAO to share his expertise and knowledge with workers from other countries, and more than 10 experts from the Hunan Hybrid Rice Institute, China's top institution in the field of hybrid rice research work, or the CNHRRDC, as international technological advisers. In 1994, China started to cooperate with American Rice Inc. and sent experts to give lectures there, so as to help promote the spread of hybrid rice in the Americas.

Moreover, Chinese hybrid rice experts have time and again gone to such Asian nations as India, Vietnam, Myanmar and Bangladesh, to offer technical guidance. Meanwhile, some 40 international hybrid rice training sessions were held in Changsha, where the CNHRRDC is located, to help train at lease 1,000 special professionals for more than 30 countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa.

By the end of 2009, there were 3 million hybrid rice sown hectares outside China. After its initial success in breeding or growing hybrid rice in 1992, Vietnam has extended the acreage under hybrid rice from 11,000 hectares in 1992, to 600,000 hectares in 2003 and 670,000 hectares in 2008.

In 2001, China experimented with and demonstrated the hybrid rice breeding in Pakistan, and "hybrid rice" yields were 30 percent higher yield than those of local common rice strains. Moreover, such Asian and African nations as Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and South Africa have all succeeded with the hybrid rice growing.

To date, hybrid rice has been introduced to approximately 110 countries, and the total area planted to hybrid rice outside China however reached only 3 million hectares. So, the development of China's hybrid rice abroad is still in a primary state with a limited scale, and the global annual sales of export hybrid rice seeds is merely about 15,000 tons, mainly in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other Asian nations. In an effort to further spread hybrid rice worldwide, a lengthy circle, a costly input, policy restriction and trade barriers are involved, and these problems demand urgent solutions.

Author: Liao Fuming and Luo Runliang People's Daily August 19, 2010
Translator: Miao Baogen