Chinese youngster promoting rice research in Pakistan

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

A Chinese young man, Dai Yingnan, has devoted three years to promoting rice production in Pakistan. 

Dai Yingnan, in a media talk, disclosed that his aim was introducing high-yield hybrid rice and advanced agriculture technology. 

“These efforts of mine will definitely improve rice production as well as alleviate the financial sufferings of farmers,” he reckoned. 

Born in a village of Liaoning Province in northeast China, the post-90s young man had personal experience of growing corn and rice with his parents when he was a kid and therefore had a deep understanding of the hardship of farmers. 

“I chose to learn agronomy at Hunan Agriculture University at the advice of my teacher. After graduation in 2017, I got an offer from Yuan Longping High-tech Agriculture Company and was later assigned to Pakistan to promote hybrid rice,” he revealed. 

“Carrying out research and promoting the plantation of hybrid rice in Pakistan is never an easy job. I had to select one type of seed that is most suitable for the local environment out of thousands of seeds,” he added. 

The temperature in Pakistan during summer can touch down to even 50 degrees centigrade and it’s accompanied with fierce sunlight and strong dust. While walking in rice fields, anyone could be sweating and uncomfortable. 

Since April 2018, Dai began to make short videos to record his life and work in Pakistan and posted them on Chinese websites.

In October, the harvest month every year, the yield of hybrid rice is apparently higher than the locally grown rice, and even twice in some places by comparison.

“I used to invite local farmers to share the joy of harvest when we reap the hybrid rice because I have a feeling of accomplishment when I see smiles on their faces,” a beaming Dai observed.