Large-scale total crop failure of rice in Anhui, Longping High-Tech responds to three major questions
CHANGSHA, April 11 (China News Service) (Reporters Li Junjie, Xu Zhixiong) After the "Liangyou 0293" produced by Yuan Longping High-Tech Agriculture Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as Longping High-Tech) suffered large-scale yield reductions, and even total crop failure, in Anhui, the incident immediately triggered widespread public concern following media reports.
People's attention has mainly focused on three aspects: What is the main reason why "Liangyou 0293" caused large-scale yield reductions and total crop failure in Anhui? Do super rice varieties focus only on yield and not on quality? How will the losses of the affected farmers be compensated?
What is the main reason for the large-scale total crop failure?
"Liangyou 0293" was bred by the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center, and the seed was produced by "Longping High-Tech". This variety was the target variety for the second-phase super rice 800 kg per 100-mu block program.
An announcement by the Ministry of Agriculture stated that this variety has a moderate maturity period, high yield, moderate susceptibility to bacterial leaf blight, high susceptibility to rice blast, and average grain quality. It is suitable for planting as single-season mid-season rice in the rice regions of the Yangtze River basin in Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangsu (excluding the Wuling Mountain area), as well as in areas of southern Henan with mild occurrence of rice blast.
"Longping High-Tech" revealed that the Bengbu area of Anhui, where the media reported large-scale yield reductions this time, is an approved suitable planting region. "Liangyou 0293" has the characteristics of lodging resistance and high yield, and has been promoted in Anhui since 2008. Because of its stable and high yield, it has been deeply welcomed by local growers. After nearly ten years of promotion, farmers are already very clear about the characteristics of this variety. Since 2008, more than 140,000 jin of seed have been promoted cumulatively in Bengbu, Anhui alone, and there had never been a situation of large-scale death from rice blast infection.
Deng Qiyun, chief scientist of the State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, introduced that rice blast is one of the important diseases of rice and can cause large-scale yield reductions. In severe cases, it can reduce yield by 40%-50%, or even result in no harvest at all, and it occurs in rice regions throughout the world. The disease is greatly affected by climate, and is prone to occur under conditions such as long periods of continuous rain, long-term deep-water irrigation, large-scale flooding irrigation, insufficient sunshine, alternating sunshine and rain, heavy fog, and heavy dew.
"Longping High-Tech" believes that, according to publicly available data from the Anhui Provincial Meteorological Center, from July to August 2014 the average temperature across Anhui was 26.2°C, the lowest since 1994, among which the temperature in Bengbu was the lowest for the same period in half a century. The extreme abnormal local climate in Anhui caused rice varieties susceptible to rice blast, including "Liangyou 0293", to become infected with rice blast, resulting in large-scale yield reductions and even total crop failure, and also led to a sharp decline in the national hybrid rice seed production volume that year.
"Longping High-Tech" stated that after the "Liangyou 0293" incident, farmers including Chang Xiuliang requested the Wuhe County Agricultural Committee and the Huaishang District Seed Management Station to separately organize experts to conduct two on-site field appraisals of crop seed quality disputes. The appraisal conclusions were both: the abnormal situation in the field was caused by rice blast, and the main reason was low temperature and continuous rain during the booting and heading stages, which caused infection with rice blast and led to an outbreak of the disease.
Deng Qiyun said in an interview with reporters that "rice blast" is a worldwide problem in the rice field. Up to now, many scientists around the world in this field have been devoted to research on rice blast, but no best method has yet been found to completely solve the problem of preventing and controlling the disease.
Regarding the cause of the rice blast outbreak, several experts interviewed said that, in addition to being related to the disease resistance of rice varieties, it is even more directly connected with external climatic conditions and field management levels.
Does super rice focus only on yield and not on quality?
Media reports said that over the past 19 years, experimental yields of super rice have advanced rapidly, but China's total rice output and per-unit yield have not shown significant increases. In 2013, China's actual average rice yield per mu was only 447.8 kg, far from the experimental level of 1000 kg.
Combined with the large-scale total crop failure in Anhui involving Longping High-Tech's "Liangyou 0293", some media reports hold that this should prompt the agricultural sector to reflect on "emphasizing yield over quality."
Reporters learned that super hybrid rice is the result of the Ministry of Agriculture's super hybrid rice breeding program. The program was proposed in 1996, with Academician Yuan Longping, the "father of hybrid rice," presiding over the breeding program. It successively achieved the program targets of 700 kg per mu for the first phase of super hybrid rice in 2000, 800 kg per mu for the second phase in 2004, and 900 kg per mu for the third phase in 2011, and in October 2014 completed the scientific research program target of 1000 kg per mu for the fourth phase.
In response to the doubts, Academician Yuan Longping, who was participating in the fifth-phase super rice program research in Hainan, said in an interview with the media that the state's requirements for super rice include not only high yield, but also grain quality reaching the ministerial second grade and resistance to the two main local rice diseases and insect pests. "One cannot completely deny super rice just because a few individual varieties have had a bit of a problem."
Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations show that the current world average rice yield is about 4.3 tons/hectare, while China's average rice yield per mu reaches about 6.6 tons/hectare. China's annual hybrid rice cultivation area is 17 million hectares, accounting for 58% of the total rice cultivation area. The national average yield of hybrid rice is 7.5 tons/hectare, while the average yield of conventional rice is 6.1 tons/hectare. The average yield of hybrid rice exceeds that of conventional rice by 10-20%, and hybrid rice's contribution to China's rice output is self-evident. The first-phase super rice was applied in large-scale promotion in 2001, covering about 1 million hectares per year in the first few years of this century, with an average yield of 8.3 tons/hectare. The planting area of second-phase super rice in 2013 was about 1 million hectares, with an average yield of about 9 tons/hectare.
"Longping High-Tech" said that since 2000, researchers represented by Yuan Longping have consistently improved the grain quality of hybrid rice through variety improvement. In the breeding of super hybrid rice, after more than 10 years of effort, relatively encouraging results have been achieved: among the 111 super rice varieties currently approved nationwide, a considerable portion are both high-yielding and high-quality. For example, the widely known Y Liangyou 1, Y Liangyou 2 and Y Liangyou 900 all meet the national standard of grade 3 or above for high-quality paddy. Y Liangyou 900 set a new global high-yield record last year, and its grain quality even reached the Ministry of Agriculture's grade 1 high-quality rice standard. "With the improvement of breeding levels, it cannot be ruled out that in the future more hybrid rice varieties that can reach grade 1 high-quality rice, or even higher grades, will enter the market."
"Longping High-Tech" also stated that after years of continuous research and development by domestic breeding experts, some super hybrid rice varieties have now shown particular advantages in lodging resistance and rice blast resistance. For example, varieties already being promoted, such as Y Liangyou 1, Y Liangyou 2 and Y Liangyou 900, are all broadly adaptable hybrid rice varieties, with strong broad adaptability to fertility, temperature and diseases and insect pests. When planted in rice fields with medium to low fertility levels, the above varieties can yield 9-10% more than ordinary conventional varieties, and when planted in rice fields with medium to high fertility levels, they can achieve super-high yields.
In addition, because super rice has great yield-increasing potential, under the premise of obtaining the same total rice output, the amount of chemical fertilizer required for planting super rice is less than that for planting ordinary rice varieties. Therefore, increasing per-unit yield in daily planting will not increase the burden on farmers.
How will farmers' losses be compensated?
At present, what concerns the affected farmers in Anhui most is how their losses will be compensated.
"Longping High-Tech" stated that after the disaster involving "Liangyou 0293", the company assigned dedicated personnel to inspect the affected areas, verify the affected area, coordinate with the local government for insurance compensation, and at the same time provide seeds free of charge to the affected farmers, giving certain help to affected farming households in restoring production. It is also working with the local government to assist the households with living difficulties and the greatest losses, and is actively negotiating a compensation plan with the affected people in the spirit of humanitarianism.
Peng Guangjian, executive president of Longping High-Tech, said that because this was a situation caused by a natural disaster, the local government has already given farmers certain compensation through insurance. However, because the national agricultural insurance amount is relatively low, in order to reduce farmers' losses, they are studying more practical and feasible methods. (End)