Representatives from the Liandu government and Huazhi Biotech Co Ltd sign a cooperative agreement in Changsha, Hunan province on Sept 7. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The district of Liandu, Lishui signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Huazhi Biotech Co Ltd, a major partner of Chinese scientist Yuan Longping in implementing his agricultural technologies, in Changsha, Hunan province on Sept 7.

Huazhi is a national high-tech company dedicated to the research and development projects related to molecular breeding, germplasm innovation, genome editing, and bioinformatics.

In 2015, the company established a partnership with Yuan, known as the "father of hybrid rice", to improve hybrid rice through the use of molecular breeding technology.

According to the agreement, Liandu and Huazhi will explore applications of new technologies in the field of molecular breeding – the application of molecular biology tools in plant breeding – and build a digital smart platform for the management of local farm products.

With the aim of creating a nationally leading demonstration base for molecular breeding, the two sides will share data and analysis results with each other to look for effective scientific methods to breed new varieties of plants under the guidance of Yuan's team.