Food for Better Life

Field-tested super-hybrid rice varieties of high yield, superior quality, enhanced vitamins, minerals and essential amino acid lysine, as well as tolerance to environmental stresses (drought and salt) and resistance to pathogens. Soybean varieties with high contents of the essential amino acid methionine. High value therapeutic and other important proteins will also be developed. These will have significant impact in eliminating malnutrition and providing food security to populations in China and beyond. On top of these, identification of a significant number of agronomically important genes from rice and soybean germplasms is also emphasized. These new proprietary gene resources will help to understand the basis for crop improvement and can be applied in making new crop varieties with improved yield, quality and stress tolerance/resistance.

As an initiative to extend plant biotechnology to alleviate energy crisis and pollution, there will be pilot experiments on generating biofuel from plant biomass. Biofuel is a renewable energy source, whose process of generation does not involve net increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and are therefore seen by many as a viable alternative to replace non-renewable sources of energy.