Chinese hybrid rice has taken root half a world away in Ecuador.
"It has won the hearts of many farmers and triggered a fever for Chinese hybrid rice among leading Ecuadorian food processors," said Xu Jingbo, a hybrid rice expert sent to Ecuador by the Yahua Seeds Holding Co. in Hunan Province.
Xu, also an official with the Hunan agricultural department, headed an eight-member team that traveled to the equatorial country three years ago to conduct field tests under a Sino-Ecuadorian cooperation program designed to promote hybrid rice. Yahua Seeds and its Ecuadorian partner Reybanpac were chosen to implement the program.
The trial has been a success and Xu estimates that total acreage in Ecuador sown with hybrid rice will top 660 hectares this year.
"We have developed Ecuador's first hybrid variety, Mirey, based on three high-yield, top quality rice strains from China," said Xu. "It has been applauded by local consumers."
Meanwhile, Ecuador has ordered 40 tons of hybrid rice seed from China over the past three years.
The hybrid variety takes only 84 to 105 days to grow, at least 20 days shorter than the average for locally grown strains, Xu said. Its average selling price, however, is more than US$275 per ton, nearly 40 percent higher than the average market price for rice, which is US$200.
Xu said his team had also accomplished a great deal in seed studies, opening up the possibility that Yahua Seeds will establish a base in South America.
Ecuador, with a population of 12.6 million, grows some 260,000 hectares of rice, but its yield per hectare is only 50 percent of the level China has attained in recent years.
The Chinese specialists are offering systematic training on hybrid rice growing to Ecuadorian technicians and planning to promote Chinese technologies there in the next five to 10 years.
Xu's team plans to conduct tests in other South American countries, including Peru, Colombia and Brazil, all of which are ideal places to plant hybrid rice.
Known as "Oriental Magic Rice," the hybrid was developed by scientist Yuan Longping in the late 1990s.
(China Daily September 2, 2004)
