ISLAMABAD – China’s hybrid wheat is coming out to be the solution forPakistan depleting agriculture economy.

China is helping accelerate the production of wheat in the Belt and Roadcountries. Countries where wheat production is not as high despite it beingthe largest food crop, especially Pakistan, can use the hybrid wheat tonotch up their production.

China is the world leader when it comes to research and development inadvanced agriculture systems and hybrid wheat varieties.

To counter the low production, the governments of Pakistan and China havecollaborated for the hybrid wheat plantation. For this, around 150 Chineseexperts have visited Pakistan to train the local farmers and agriculturalexperts across 20 cities.

Beijing Hybrid Wheat Engineering Technology Research Center and ChineseHybrid Wheat Company are working together with the University ofAgriculture Peshawar and Jiade Agricultural Company since 2012 and morethan 120 hybrids have been planted across 230 locations. The yield hasshown a tremendous growth of 24.4%.

Hybrid wheat varieties are not only useful in South Asia but Africa andEurope as well. Sinochem Group’s Vice President for Agricultural Division,Song Weibo says:

In the future, Sinochem Group will cultivate a number of high-yield,high-quality, and resistant wheat varieties that are suitable for Centraland South Asian countries along the Belt and Road. We will also establishhybrid wheat cultivation and demonstration bases in South Asia, SoutheastAsia, Africa, and Europe. The Asia-Africa-Europe hybrid wheat demonstrationand application network will simultaneously create a responsible andreciprocal community for cooperation in hybrid wheat planting technologyand industrial development.

Manager of the research department of the Chinese Hybrid Wheat Company,Zhang Shengquan believes that the hybrid wheat is far more efficient thanthe traditional varieties in many ways:

Compared with traditional varieties, second-generation hybrid wheatconsistently holds higher wheat yield results, and also has strongresistance and lower seed consumption, which is good for middle andlow-yield fields. It can be planted from the 25 parallel north, such asKarachi, Pakistan, all the way to 40 north.

The total planting area of countries along the Belt and Road is 6.6 millionand wheat is one of the most important crops, even then, some of thesecountries’ wheat production is lower than the world average and there is ahuge room for improvement in the yield which can be achieved through hybridwheat.