Area under hybrid rice may go up 5 million hectares

India is targeting hybrid rice cultivation on five million hectares in the next five years

At present, India has about two million hectares under hybrid rice cultivation of the total of 44 million hectares under rice cultivation.

S. Ayyappan, Director-General of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research, said the institute's frontline demonstration and its 'Farmer's First' programme were expected to popularise this technology in the coming years.

The focus should be on developing long-duration hybrid rice for coastal areas and quality hybrid rice for southern India, he said at the 6th International Hybrid Rice Symposium here today.

The Andhra Pradesh Minister for Agriculture K. Lakshmi Narayana inaugurated the symposium which saw delegates from most rice producing nations participate.

He said so far 59 hybrid rice varieties have been released in India, 31 of which were from the public sector and the rest from the private sector. “Today several private companies were working with ICAR on hybrid rice research,” he said.

The AP Minister said the State was the first to release two hybrid rice varieties (APP RH 1 and 2) for commercial cultivation. “New good hybrids are in the pipeline and will be released shortly,” he added.

Lakshmi Narayana said the AP Agriculture University was working towards developing new varieties that were resistant to salinity and alkalinity.

Ashis Bahuguna, Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Government of India, pointed out that climate change was taking its toll on food security. Therefore, hybrid technology is an option to overcome the impact of climate change in agriculture.

>amitmitra@thehindu.co.in