Why does China's record for the average rice yield per mu over a hundred-mu area keep getting lower?
A few days ago, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that the experimental field overseen by Academician Yuan Longping reached a yield of 926 kg per mu, setting a Chinese record. But a current-affairs commentator named "Bali," after searching through materials, found that well before this, apart from the People's Daily's 1958 release of the absurd claim of 100,000 jin per mu, Xinhua News Agency had already published a report back in 2006 stating a rice yield of 1287 kg per mu, and Yunnan Daily in 2010 published a report stating a rice yield exceeding 1000 kg per mu. If Academician Yuan's 926 kg is a record, does that mean China's records keep getting lower? After Academician Yuan's "record" was announced, Chen Jieren questioned that the Ministry of Agriculture's yield measurement was not open and transparent, and was besieged by a large group of people. Their reasons were mainly two: first, how can non-agronomists be qualified to question agronomists? Second, Academician Yuan is a famous scientist, and the yield was measured by the state, so how can it be questioned? I will not refute these reasons; I only want to ask everyone to look at these images and then ask one question: is there really no need to question this? If non-agricultural personnel cannot question the agricultural field, then if someday someone dies playing hide-and-seek in a detention center, does that mean anyone who has not worked in a detention center cannot question it either?
Early rice yield per mu of over 36,900 jin
Xinhua - China's early rice sets new record of 1287 kg
Yunnan Daily - Average yield per mu of over 1000 kg in a hundred-mu demonstration field
Hunan Daily - How Yuan Longping set another record
On the afternoon of September 19, an expert group from the Ministry of Agriculture announced in Changsha: the super hybrid rice research led by Academician Yuan Longping achieved an average yield of 926.6 kg per mu over a hundred-mu plot in Yanggu'ao Township, Longhui County, Shaoyang City, Hunan Province. Some media called this a world-shaking super-high-yield rice record.
This astonishing news spread across the country the next day. A village party secretary far away in the northeast said to me with great indignation: our village could already reach a yield of over 900 kg per mu more than a decade ago. His tone was very firm, so I half-believingly went online to check. Who would have thought that the more I checked, the greater my doubts became.
First I found a Xinhua News Agency report dated September 7, 2006: "1287 kg: China Sets a New World Record for Rice Yield per Mu" (the original title was as such; readers may search by title). The report stated that the world's latest record for rice yield per mu was born that day in Taoyuan Township, Yongsheng County, Yunnan Province: the new rice variety "Xieyou 107," through precision quantitative cultivation techniques, achieved an actual measured yield of 1287 kg per mu on site. The report said this was field-accepted by experts organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology. According to the report, "Xieyou 107" was a new super hybrid rice variety bred by a research group led by "Yangtze River Scholar" Professor Wan Jianmin under special funding from the national "863" program and approved by the state.
A very clever friend, after reading this, disagreed: yours is "precision quantitative cultivation," while theirs is "average yield per mu over a hundred-mu area" - there is no comparability. Is that really so? I accidentally found another front-page headline from Yunnan Daily dated September 22, 2010: "'Chujing 28' Sets a New World Record for Rice Yield per Mu - Average Yield per Mu of over 1000 kg in a Hundred-Mu Demonstration Field." The report stated that the super rice variety "Chujing 28," bred by researcher Li Kaibin, a rice breeding expert at the Yunnan Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture Agricultural Science Extension Research Institute, achieved high yields that year through large-scale promoted planting in Touyi Village, Yinjie Town, Midu County. After field acceptance by an expert group commissioned by the Science and Education Division of the Yunnan Provincial Department of Agriculture, the average yield per mu of its hundred-mu demonstration plot reached 1002.11 kg, breaking the previous world record of 988.77 kg average yield per mu over a hundred-mu area.