The Guard Agricultural Research & Services (Pvt) Limited, pioneer in introduction of hybrid rice in Pakistan, in collaboration with the Yuan Longping Hi-Tech Agriculture Co Ltd of China, is planning to expand its product basket to increase production of different crops, tackling the issue of food security as well as helping the farmers to get suitable returns on their investments. The new products to be introduced include a new rice hybrid variety called as "Super High Hybrid Rice seed", having potential to produce 18 tons per hectare, recently developed by the Yuan Longping Hi-Tech Industries.
High-ups of both the organisations disclosed this while briefing a media delegation which visited the research facilities and offices of Chinese company recently.
Guard Agricultural Research & Services (Pvt) Ltd's Director Shah Rukh Malik and Chinese Company's Vice President Fangming Xie while talking to media persons said they were focusing on different hybrid including rice, maize, wheat, tomato, chillies and oil seeds. Introduction of hybrid rice had already resulted in doubling the yield of IRRI rice, doubling the income of farmers, poverty alleviation and increased export of non-Basmati rice.
The delegation also called on the Chinese Company's founder Professor Yuan Longping, who is globally acknowledged rice scientists and known as "Father of the Hybrid Rice". Professor Longping, who will be 87 in September and still active welcomed Pakistani friends and threw light on latest developments including a high-yielding new rice hybrid.
He offered this new variety to Pakistan saying earlier hybrid rice had performed well in Pakistan and hoped that the new variety would give more positive results. Professor Yuan Longping said the new variety had performed marvelously in commercial trials and said it may give up to 18 tons per hectare even in the extreme conditions.
He said the Chinese government has allowed their company to spread the benefits of their research to other countries, especially the developing ones. To different queries, he said they were now working on developing different hybrid seeds such as drought tolerant, heat tolerant and those which could meet the challenges of climate change.
"Developing hybrid rice and benefiting the people in the world is the task of LPHT. We will do our best to solve the food shortage problem for developing countries in south and south east part of Asia and Africa," said another scientist of the Chinese Company.
Hybrid rice was introduced to foreign countries in 1979 and it has been studied and promoted in more than 80 countries. The annual planting area is close to 5 million hectare, the average yield is 20 percent higher than the local varieties.
From 2000 to 2017, 226 rice varieties of the institute have been approved, 87 of which passed national approval. In 2016, 18 varieties passed national approval while in 2017, 46 varieties passed national approval. From 1976 to 2016, the total planting area of hybrid rice was 560 million hectare, and total output increased by more than 300 billion kg. Chinese hybrid rice has stabilized at more than 14 million hectares, accounting for more than half of the total rice and more than half of the total area under rice cultivation.
Chinese company has breeding stations in Philippines, India and Pakistan while its testing stations are situated in Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Myanmar. In 2017, international rice R&D Centre of LPHT has also been established in Hunan. Sales of new variety seeds of LLY and JLY series has reached 14 million kg from 2016-17.
The performance of LPHT increased more than 10 percent in three years. In 2016, the income of main business reached 2.299 billion yuan and profit reached 501 million yuan. The LPHT was awarded the Star Company of Chinese Seed (1st rank) three consecutive years and listed the 55th position in the "Most Innovative Growing Enterprises" of Forbes.
There are more than 800 million people facing hunger all over the world. Under the shortage of global resources and food, Chinese hybrid rice varieties and technology is very meaningful to some undeveloped countries of South and South East-Asia and Africa.