In 2008, breeders from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences developed a rice under the Green Super Rice project that had high and stable yields and didn’t require a lot of inputs. They called it FFZ-1. They sent seeds to the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines for sake keeping. Because you never know when someone might need those seeds.

In 2014, a Pakistani breeder took FFZ-1 and a bunch of other rice from the shelves of the genebank in the Philippines and brought it to Pakistan to be stored for safekeeping. Because you never know when someone might need those seeds.

In 2019, some breeders from the plant Rice Program at Pakistan’s National Agricultural Research Center withdrew about 80 types of rice from the National Genebank of Pakistan. They thought they plant would them and see what happens. Because you never know.

In 2025, we now know. FFZ-1 is now called NARC-RICE-1 and in trials is outperforming Pakistan’s best rice varieties. It needs to go through a few more trials and approvals, but most likely that rice which Chinese breeders thought was pretty good could now lead to better food security for Pakistanis.

You never know. But I wanted everyone to know so I wrote a little story about NARC-RICE-1 AKA FFZ-1 based on my visit to Pakistan last year.

All images used on this page were photographed by Michael Major for the Crop Trust and used here under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.