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Guard group, Chinese co ink accord to develop hybrid rice

ZAHID BAIG

LAHORE: Guard Agricultural Research & Services (Pvt) Limited has made an agreement with Yuan Longping High-Tech Agriculture Company Ltd, China, which is a subsidiary company of Hunan Rice Research Institute (HRRI) concerning joint development of hybrid rice combination.

The chief executive of the Guard Agricultural Research and Services and executive committee member of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Shahzad Ali Malik, in a letter to federal secretary, ministry of food and agriculture, has sought his help asking Minfal, Parc, Narc and provincial rice research institutes (PRRI's) and agriculture departments to help the company in investigating and recording data of soil, weather, crop from seedling/nursery raising to harvest at each field.

Giving reason in his letter, he stated that "although our agricultural scientists are in the process of developing hybrid rice, yet we lack and are quite backward in development and cultivation of hybrid rice on commercial scale. As a result, we are facing stiff competition in the international market from countries like China, Thailand, Vietnam etc offering hybrid coarse rice in competition with our IRRI-6 variety grown in Sindh." He said this variety, introduced way back in 1960s, also "needs to be replaced" due to seed degeneration over time.

According to the agreement, in the first phase, HRRI will supply Guard four different paddy seeds for completion of trial and selection of hybrid rice combinations. The Guard group will establish 10 fields, of four acres each, for trials of four different hybrid rice combinations. These fields will be at different locations in Punjab and Sindh. The company also plans to hold seminars/workshops which will be lectured by HRRI hybrid rice experts from nursery growing uptill harvesting, to monitor and record data for each field, these experts will stay in Pakistan for five months.

Shahzad, who is also the chairman of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP), has asked the Federal agriculture secretary to help in getting assistance from the institutions concerned with rice research.