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"Hybrid rice is an effective tool to solve the global poverty and famine issues as the world food safety situation is still serious", said Ms. Victoria Se-ki-to-le-ko, representative of UN Food and Agriculture Organization. She made the remarks at the Chinese Hybrid Rice Technology Foreign Cooperation Ministerial Forum in Changsha, Capital city of central China's Hunan Province.
According to Ms. Se-ki-to-le-ko, the latest UNFAO figures show that number of people suffering from hungriness will hit 1 billion by 2009. 2030 will see the most serious food shortages, as world population will reach 8 billion.
Currently 1,000 to 3,500 hectares of resource land are transferred into various non-agricultural uses each year, most of which are farmlands. And how to better raise per capita production in the shrinking farmland has become a top priority.
Now hybrid rice, which has a 15 to 20 % productivity advantage over that of regular rice, provides the world with a new hope.
Ms. Se-ki-to-le-ko said that FAO strongly believes that hybrid rice is a highly effective tool to solve global poverty and starvation. UNFAO will cooperate with China and its other member countries to further introduce and promote the utilization of hybrid rice technology to deal with the challenges of food shortage.
Presently, UNFAO has listed hybrid rice technology the preferred measure to solve food shortages in developing countries. Also in recent years, over 40 countries in Asia, Africa and the America Continent have introduced and conducted researches on hybrid rice.
Thanks to the introduction of hybrid rice technology in the Philippines, the per capita rice yield has been doubled while by utilizing the technology Vietnam has fulfilled self-support in grain production.
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