Chinese agricultural expert Qifa Zhang has called for the development of a new hybrid high-yielding rice. He said that this rice should not only be nutrient-rich, pest-and drought-resistant, it should also reduce the need for use of pesticides and fertilizers. Zhang also believes that the next generation of rice breeds also need to be modified to address global warming and climate change. He notes that genes for around 10 of these desired traits have been identified and are now available for breeding.
Zhang has named this hybrid rice as ‘Green Super Rice’. Speaking in the context of China, he said:
This hybrid rice must reduce the use of pesticides, fertilizers and must withstand drought.
China is believed to be the world’s leading user of pesticides. Although reduction of pesticides and fertilizers needs to be a global effort, Zhang observes that China is using
between 30 percent to 33 percent of the world’s supply
of fertilizers. This amounts to around 400 million tones of fertilizers annually.
As stacking all the desired genes for the traits outlined above into a single plant is not practical, Zhang recommends breeding several hybrids, each with a few of the favourable traits. In an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences he wrote:
A big challenge is the assembling process to combine all the favourable (genes) into a single cultivar (cultivated plant) and ensure their proper functioning.
