Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – In a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi some time ago, Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Panjaitan asked China to transfer technology, especially in the field of rice breeding. The goal is for Indonesia to achieve rice self-sufficiency, not just imports.
Luhut's reason for making this request is of course inseparable from China's glory in the food industry.
History records that there was a Chinese scientist and farmer who discovered a new variety that allowed rice production to increase many times over to meet market needs. The scientist and farmer is Yuan Longping.
In 1964, Yuan pioneered the development of a new type of rice that could grow faster and survive on less fertile land, but could produce larger yields. This action was taken out of concern because several years earlier there had been a major famine that killed thousands of Chinese people.
On this basis, he pioneered the development of new rice and attempted to break the ancient genetic stigma that said rice could not be cross-breeding. He planted it himself as a trial. The way to do it is to quote South China Morning Postis by cross-breeding sterile male rice seeds with other rice seeds.
This variety was later named hybrid rice and became a new breakthrough apart from conventional rice planting techniques. This discovery was quickly implemented on a mass scale in 1976 and proved successful in increasing rice production by 20% -30% more than usual.
In notes New York Post, hybrid rice has initially been successfully planted on 16 million hectares (ha), or the entirety of rice fields in China, where fertility is only 9%. Despite many challenges, the government says Yuan's discovery has succeeded in feeding China's entire population. Moreover, after commercialization.
“China's state-run commercialization of hybrid rice led to a huge increase in rice production. In general, hybrid rice yields exceed conventional rice by 20-30%. “In fact, until now (2021) more than 6 billion hectares of hybrid rice have been planted in China,” wrote research from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Interestingly, this discovery was not patented by Yuan, although on the other hand a patent is very possible and could make you rich. Yuan ultimately preferred to contribute knowledge to various institutions and countries. He was once assigned by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to be the head of the international hybrid rice project.
Apart from that, he also volunteers as a consultant at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and shares his knowledge for free with farmers in Australia, UK, Egypt, Italy, Japan, USA and Indonesia.
“The people taught by Yuan have become the backbone of hybrid rice research and development in their respective institutions and countries. With technical assistance from China, many countries have become large-scale hybrid rice producing countries in the world,” said the research.
Since then he has become famous and has been awarded many international awards. Many also consider him a hero in the agricultural sector. Because, Asian people eat rice products greedily thanks to their cold hands.
The Chinese government specifically nicknamed him the “Father of Hybrids.” This nickname is not an exaggeration because many countries have experienced an increase in rice production on an extraordinary scale. One of them is China which switched to hybrid rice and succeeded in becoming a rice self-sufficient country. What a shame, Yuan's great work had to stop on May 22 2021 after he died at the age of 92 due to illness.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
(mfa/mfa)