More rice strains to be promoted

More rice varieties that produce healthier and higher-yield harvests are expected to be promoted in China to meet increasing demand and further contribute to national food security, said a senior agricultural academician.

As a key staple grain, rice production in China has significantly increased over the past decades due to extensive promotion of superior varieties, said Wan Jianmin, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Last year, average per-hectare production of rice in China exceeded 7 metric tons, 3.7 times as much as 70 years ago, said the academy. Of all 27 major producers of rice in the world, China only lags behind the United States and Egypt in per-hectare production of rice, the academy said.

China is also the world's largest producer of rice. All rice grown in China is domestically bred, and self-sufficiency in supply has been achieved for rice and other major crops such as wheat, said Wan, also a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Along with increasing yields, domestically bred rice has also improved in quality and taste in recent years due to new varieties reaching the market, Wan said.

For example, Wan and his colleagues have successfully bred varieties that can produce high quality rice with special characteristics. W088, one of the varieties, contains reduced protein levels and results in slower rises in blood sugar after digestion, which makes it particularly suitable for people with chronic kidney diseases or diabetes.

With progress made in recent years in the research and development of high-quality rice varieties, the quality and taste of some rice varieties cultivated in China is comparable to top quality rice grown in countries such as Japan and Thailand.

"Compared with China, some developed countries attach more importance to the quality of rice, especially its taste," he said, adding that China is still at the initial stage R&D of rice varieties with special functions－a campaign meant to meet demand from different groups of people.

"We should intensify efforts to cultivate new rice varieties that can further increase yields and quality, and are disease-resistant so less pesticides are needed," he said.

Agricultural researchers will intensify efforts in the R&D of higher-yield rice varieties over the next few years, with an aim of increasing per-hectare yields by 10 percent by 2035 from current levels, Wan added.

Meanwhile, breakthroughs are also expected in breeding new rice varieties with special merits, such as those being more nutritious or blight-resistant, he said.

To further increase rice breeding, intensified efforts must be made on various fronts, including collection and utilization of superior genetic resources and technological innovations using the latest techniques.

However, compared with some developed countries, China still lags behind in breeding technologies. For example, biotechnology and artificial intelligence have already been used for rice breeding in some countries, but many researchers in China still rely on more traditional means such as hybrid breeding methods, he said.