200 Million People Could Be Fed With China's New Saltwater Rice

Chinese scientists have developed really tollerant "sea rice” that farmers can grow in salty water, that could help feed over 200 million people. 

The rice was developed by Yuan Longping, at the Qingdao Saline-Alkali Tolerant Rice Research And Development Center in Qingdao on the eastern coast of China, reported Chinese state media.

Yuan is like the godfather of rice, in the 1970s he was one of the first scientists to develop hybrid rice varieties. Riding on fears that the Chinese population was set to explode within the coming decades, his team helped create numerous strains of rice that grow faster, yield more, and resist more stress. Nowadays, up to 20 percent of the world’s rice comes from rice species created through his pioneering work.

"If a farmer tries to grow some types of saline-tolerant rice now, he or she most likely will get 1,500 kilograms per hectare. That is just not profitable and not even worth the effort,Farmers will have enough incentive to grow the rice if we double the yield." said Yuan

The rice was developed through years of trait selection, crossbreeding, and genetic analysis. These scientists grew the crop in rice paddies pumped with diluted seawater from the Yellow Sea, the body of water between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula.

“My boyfriend said it was like the rice he had back in his village. It is very good," one Chinese consumer told the South China Morning Post.