Yuan Longping, a Chinese agronomist known for pioneering the development of the world’s first hybrid rice varieties which significantly improved China’s rice output and food securit.
His dedication to rice production increase to feed the people dates back to the mid-20th century when China was going through a tough time.
“My life goal is to help all people stay away from hunger.”
“Something as small as a grain can save a country, while it can also make a country fall,” he said during a television interview with CCTV.
Yuan’s biggest dream in life was to develop more hybrid rice varieties and use it to address famine that keeps happening in many parts of the world. Over the past 40 years, Yuan and his team continuously held seminars and courses which taught his methodologies to some 14,000 students from nearly 80 countries. The agronomist, when in his old age, still traveled to as far as Africa to help solve technical failures and boost harvests.
So far, the hybrid varieties he developed have been grown extensively in over 40 countries, including the U.S., Brazil, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Madagascar among others.
In the meantime, he was also engaged in cultivating salt-alkali tolerant rice, bringing rice grown in diluted seawater to people’s table.
Yuan, academician with both the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, was awarded with Medal of the Republic, China’s highest honor, for his groundbreaking research.
