Progress in seeds, yields cultivate food security By WANG XIAODONG in Beijing and MA ZHIPING in Haikou | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2021-01-25 07:12 Share SHI YU/CHINA DAILY
In 1963, when Cheng Xiangwen was assigned to work as a seed cultivation technician at a farm in Henan province s Xunxian county, corn production in the area was just above 750 kilograms per hectare.
Even though the farmers worked hard, they could not harvest enough corn, a food staple, to feed their families due to low yields. The situation hit home with Cheng, who had just graduated from vocational school. After that, I made up my mind to cultivate new corn varieties so the land would produce more grain, said 84-year-old Cheng, chief expert in corn cultivation at the Hebi Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Henan.