Is it just "a little problem" with super rice?

In Bengbu, Anhui Province, the harvest of 10,000 mu of "super rice" was lost or reduced last year, which pushed the seed supplier Longping High Tech to the forefront. Amid controversy, Longping Hi-Tech announced on the evening of April 12 that it would stop the sale of the hybrid rice seed and announced that it would set up a post-disaster relief fund for the seed industry. Yuan Longping believes that there is a small problem in Anhui this time, and it cannot be said that all super rice has problems. (the Morning Post, April 14)

"Liangyou 0293" encountered a Waterloo in Anhui, and the dispute over super rice has become a hot topic. China is a big grain-growing country, and it has always been a grain-deficient country. Of course, it is not easy to give up the pursuit of output and hastily choose to prefer taste. According to some data, the extension area of super rice in China accounts for 30 percent of the country's rice planting area, with an increase of 13.2 percent per mu, promoting the increase of rice production. Therefore, even people who no longer have dialectical thinking are not expected to kill super rice with a single blow.

However, when it comes to the loss of rice production and harvest in Anhui, the attitude of the parties concerned does not seem to be so scientific.

First, if something goes wrong, we deny that it is "super rice", but is this really the case? For example, the Ministry of Agriculture responded that "Liangyou 0293" had not participated in the super rice variety identification organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and was not a "super rice" variety. To this end, the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences explained in an interview with reporters that in the identification of super rice, there are two ways: the Ministry of Agriculture and the provincial level, and the identification standard is mainly based on the level of large area yield. "Liangyou 0293" is a super high-yielding variety approved by the National Variety approval Committee of Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center in 2006. it has been recognized as a super rice combination by Hunan Province, which does not conflict with the "failure to pass" by the Ministry of Agriculture. In fact, "Liangyou 0293" is called super rice on the official website of Longping Hi-Tech, the publicity materials of "Liangyou 0293", as well as the official website of Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center and related academic papers. So the question arises: is it that the agricultural department failed to correct the wrong formulation of "Liangyou 0293" in time, or is the seed company suspected of false propaganda?

Second, Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice and honorary chairman of Longping Hi-Tech, said in an interview with Hunan Daily that "super rice should not be completely denied because there is something wrong with individual varieties." Old Yuan is a respected scientist of the Chinese people, and his position is not without reason. However, even if it is not mentioned that the seed setting rate of "Liangyou 0293" planted in Hubei in 2007 is only 30% due to lack of high temperature tolerance, it is not to mention that "Liangyou 0293" planted in Wuhu, Anhui Province in 2008, caused large area white blight leaf disease. Even in 2012, "Liangyou 0293" in Jiangsu Province was infected with rice blast. In October 2014, Liangyou 0293 planted in six cities of Bengbu, Anqing, Hefei, Chuzhou, Maanshan and Huainan in Anhui Province experienced large-scale yield reduction and no harvest, and the affected area was more than 10,000 mu. Can you say that it's just "a little problem"? And if this is "a little problem", why Longping Hi-Tech "decided to stop selling Liangyou 0293"? From the point of view of super rice research and development and promotion institutions, it is a correct and rational attitude to "deny super rice completely when there is something wrong with individual varieties". However, from the point of view of farmers with no harvest, "we cannot take the historical contribution of super rice and fail to see the specific shortcomings of its objective existence", I am afraid it is also in line with the rational cognition of dialectics.

Moreover, science will never take "minor problems" lightly, otherwise, it would not have the glory of today's Longping high-tech, let alone the far-reaching impact of super rice on Chinese agriculture. Today, we do not need to deal with super rice, but we have to face up to the "small problems" in the field of super rice that are not too small.