More pro-farmer policies needed to boost farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain

“Boosting farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain requires the government to introduce more policies that benefit and strengthen farmers,” said Yuan Longping, academician and “father of hybrid rice,” when accepting a media interview in Guangzhou on the 21st, adding that grain is the “treasure of treasures” and the government should do more to raise farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain.

Yuan Longping came to Guangzhou this time to sign a strategic cooperation agreement on behalf of the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center with the “National Engineering Research Center for Plant Space Breeding” of South China Agricultural University. At the same time, the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center, the National Plant Space Breeding Research Center, Glimeir (China) Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., and Hunan Kelupu Crop Quality Research Center Co., Ltd. signed a four-party cooperative research agreement.

According to the introduction, the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center holds a leading position at home and abroad in the research and utilization of rice heterosis, has already achieved a super rice high-yield breakthrough of 1000 kg per mu, and is now working toward the fifth-phase super hybrid rice breakthrough. Yuan Longping said the plan is to break through 16 tons per hectare ahead of schedule in 2016, and after achieving 16 tons to move on to 17 tons, continuing the research all the way to 20 tons. Cooperation among the parties will significantly improve the efficiency of breeding new varieties of strongly heterotic hybrid rice. The cooperation plan is to create 15-20 special germplasm materials of important value in the cultivation of strongly heterotic hybrid rice, breed 2-3 super rice varieties (combinations), and apply for 3-4 invention patents; the newly bred varieties, combined with integrated high-yield and high-efficiency production measures, are expected to be applied across more than 5 million mu in the South China rice region, generating social benefits of more than 500 million yuan.

A reporter asked: because grain growing yields relatively low returns, most farmers in Guangdong are not very enthusiastic about growing grain, so how can super rice be promoted for cultivation in Guangdong? Yuan Longping said that low farmer enthusiasm for growing grain is not unique to Guangdong; in fact, it is the same across the whole country. He said the price of grain is the “foundation of a hundred prices” and cannot be high, because once grain prices rise they drive up prices generally and cause inflation, while low grain prices in turn hurt farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain. He proposed that the government should introduce more policies that benefit and strengthen farmers to raise their enthusiasm for growing grain, such as purchasing grain from farmers at a high price and then supplying the market at a fair price; at the same time, agricultural machinery subsidies and the like could be increased somewhat.

Chen Zhiqiang, vice president of South China Agricultural University and director of the National Engineering Research Center for Plant Space Breeding, also said that making money from grain growing depends on scaling up, and once a certain scale is reached, mechanized planting can be used to reduce the cost of growing grain. At the same time, after scaled planting, the state provides a total of 7 kinds of subsidies including agricultural machinery subsidies and seed subsidies, greatly reducing the cost of growing grain. According to his estimate, if a farmer grows more than 300 mu of land, there will be money to be made.