Biotech Updates

Gates Foundation Supports Project to Develop Super Rice

April 3, 2009

Zhai Huqu, President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), has signed an agreement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on an international project that aims to develop new rice varieties that can withstand stress, including severe flooding, drought, cold and heavy metals polluted soil. The three-year project, called Green Super Rice for the Resource Poor of Asia and Africa, will receive USD 18 million from the Gates Foundation.

Rice scientists from the Chinese Academy of Agriculture (CCA) will be working with researchers from the Philippine-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Africa Rice Center (WARDA), the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology and the Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center for the project.

For more information, read http://english.cas.ac.cn/Eng2003/news/detailnewsb.asp?infoNo=27655