HAIKOU /China/, November 17. /TASS/. Over 8 thousand agricultural specialists annually visit Hainan Island to promote national seed and breeding projects. This was reported by the Nanguo Metropolis Daily.

According to the newspaper, the province cooperates with about 800 research organizations, the main task of which is to ensure the food security of the PRC. Thanks to the efforts of specialists, as it is noted, since the establishment of the People's Republic more than 20 thousand new varieties of agricultural products have been developed. About 70% of them were born thanks to breeding projects with Hainan and other southern regions of China.

Sanya City, Lingshui-Li and Ledong-Li autonomous counties (southern part of the island) have allocated more than 17,800 hectares of land for breeding and seed production projects. In addition, the authorities have set up modern infrastructure there for scientists to live and conduct research.

"As Hainan forms a 'Breeding Silicon Valley', specialists are constantly developing scientific backgrounds and introducing more and more advanced equipment," commented a branch of China Agricultural University in Sanya.

As one local agriculturalist clarified, due to the pandemic and its negative impact on scientific and production activities as well as transportation, PRC research organizations have begun to take more thoughtful and careful measures to ensure planting according to the planned schedule. "If this is not done in a timely manner, not only the current year's breeding species will suffer. All subsequent generations of cultivated plants bred in the southern Chinese region could also be affected," he explained.

Hainan plays a key role in China's seed program. Selective breeding projects carried out in the province attract the attention of several hundred research organizations, leading universities and enterprises every year. Thousands of specialists from different regions of China as well as from other countries are involved in them. The fate of China's leading breeder, the "father of hybrid rice" Yuan Longping (1930-2021), who regularly visited there in winter for the past more than 50 years, was closely connected with these developments.