Farmers in the United States and China now plant about 50 percent of their acres to hybrid rice, according to Michael Gumina, global CEO for RiceTec Ag, a seed company that focuses primarily on the relatively new type of rice.

If the world population continues to grow at the present rate and the world economy doesn’t falter too badly, growers in both the U.S. and China could be planting 75 to 80 percent of their rice in hybrids in the next 20 years, he says.

That’s on top of gains in hybrid rice in other regions of the world where increasing food production will be a major goal over the next two decades, says Gumina, who was a presenter during one of the latest in the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture System’s Food and Agribusiness Webinar series.

“When we look out in our crystal ball here over the next 20 years, this is what we are projecting for the market,” he says. “For the Mercosur (South America), we are at 4 percent today. We think that will jump up to 34 percent by 2035. India is at 7 percent today for hybrid rice, and we think that will move up to 28 percent. The rest of Southeast Asia will be at 35 percent in 20 years.”