India's rice revolution: Chinese scientist questions massive harvests

Revelations in last week's Observer Food Monthly have created controversy over the truth of record yields

John Vidal
The Observer, Saturday 23 February 2013 07.06 EST
China's leading rice scientist has questioned India's claims of a world record harvest, following a report in last week's Observer of astonishing yields achieved by farmers growing the crop in the state of Bihar.

Professor Yuan Longping, known as the "father of rice", said he doubted whether the Indian government had properly verified young Indian farmer Sumant Kumar's claim that he had produced 22.4 tonnes of rice from one hectare of land in Bihar in 2011.

Yuan, director-general of China's national rice research centre and holder of the previous record of 19.4 tonnes a hectare, asked: "How could the Indian government have confirmed the number after the harvesting was already done?"