Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, many countries and regions have begun to restrict their domestic food exports for food security reasons, which has caused global concerns about the food crisis. The reporter contacted Yuan Longping, the “father of hybrid rice”, who is carrying out scientific research on Sanya Nanfan Base in Hainan, and Yuan Longping expressed his views on this.
Regarding the food security issues that may be brought about by the current COVID-19 epidemic, Yuan Longping said that China is fully capable of achieving self-sufficiency in food production, and there will be no “food shortage”.
Since Hainan has sufficient sunshine and a suitable climate, Yuan Longping ’s team will go to Sanya Nanfan Base for research from December to April each year. In addition to being busy with his work this year, Yuan Longping is also very concerned about the COVID-19 epidemic. In February, he donated RMB 100,000 to Hubei in his own name through the Red Cross Society of Hunan Province, and specially recorded a video to cheer everyone on the front line.
Yuan Longping has been busy for food security in China and the world. The reporter learned that the team of Yuan Longping will promote 10 million mu of carefully selected super hybrid rice variety “Chaoyou Qianhao” throughout the country this year, and it is expected to increase production by 100 kg per mu. On March 23, the “Sany Project” (feeding one person in three areas) double-season rice high-yield research demonstration 2020 annual work meeting, identified in Hunan’s 13 counties (cities, districts) research base to carry out the third generation Demonstration of double-season high-yield research on hybrid rice “bottoming”, the goal is to achieve a total output of 18 tons per hectare in two seasons.
The third-generation hybrid rice, which was first tested publicly in October last year and yielded 1046.3 kilograms per mu, is also about to complete this year’s seed production mission at the Nanfan Base. It is expected that the seeds will be harvested on April 10. In addition, the experimental area of saline-alkali-tolerant rice (sea rice) rice cultivation improved by Yuan Longping was also expanded to 10,000 mu last year. The test field is set in different types of saline-alkali land, including Northeast, Bohai Bay, Xinjiang, and southeast coastal areas. Yuan Longping once said that China has about 1.5 billion mu of saline-alkali land, of which the area of saline-alkali land with transformation potential is between 200 million and 300 million mu, with a target output of 300 kg per mu.
Yuan Longping emphasized that although China is fully capable of achieving food self-sufficiency, the string of ensuring food security has not been relaxed for a moment, and this global epidemic is a wake-up call.