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Massive crop failure was reported in rice fields where strains developed by China's "father of hybrid rice" Yuan Longping were cultivated.
Significant crop loss caused by rice blast, a deadly disease affecting cultivated rice, hit almost 700 hectares of rice fields last year in Anhui province, a major rice producer in East China.
In the worst-hit areas, the yield of rice plummeted from 7,500 kilograms per hectare in average years to 750 kilograms per hectare last year, or even to none.
Local farmers blamed misleading advertisements for their loss.
On the package of seeds sold to farmers, the ad claims the strains have high disease-resistance levels, with an incidence rate of 25 percent. But inside the package, a piece of paper is attached, which says the seeds are of level-9 disease-resistance, suggesting the possibility of catching a disease is as high as 100 percent.
In response, the Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture Company says the poor yield in the autumn harvest season last year was mainly a result of a natural disaster which affected not only rice fields of the hybrid-rice strains developed by the company, but also other varieties.
The Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture Company was founded in 1999 to promote super high-yield hybrid rice.
