allAfrica.com (July 31, 2014) | Zimbabwe is set to embark on an ambitious programme to boost the country’s rice output after the country signed a memorandum of understanding with a Chinese rice research centre recently.Businessman and farmer, Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa, struck a deal with renowned Chinese agricultural scientist Professor Yuan Longpin’s National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center in Changsha in Hunan Province to start a pilot hybrid rice production exercise that could easily transform Zimbabwe into a major rice growing hub in the Sadc region using varieties suitable to local conditions.