Kathmandu, Oct. 14 -- Dina Thakur of Belbari, Morang visits his farm and counts the grains at his standing paddy plants that have grown around 1.2 meter high. "There are around 370 rice grains tightly enveloped by the husk," the 69-year-old farmer says excitedly.

There is a reason why Thakur is upbeat. This year, he is expecting to produce 9 tonnes of paddy on a hectare of land - three times the national average paddy productivity rate.

All this is because Thakur cultivated two high yielding hybrid varieties- Arize 6444 Gold and Arize Idea hybrids. He owns 1.7 hectares (2.5 bigas) of land. As the ripening period of these varieties is 125 days, Thakur is expecting to harvest his crop towards the end of October. The early ripening time ha...