Farewell to the ‘father’ of Chinese hybrid rice giống

Chinese scientist Yuan Longping, who is famous for successfully breeding the first hybrid rice variety that saved millions of people from starvation, died at the age of 91 on May 22.

Chinese scientist Yuan Longping passed away at the age of 91 on May 22. Photo: scmp.com China’s top rice researcher has died at a hospital in Trường Sa city, capital of Hunan province. Born in Beijing in 1930, agronomist Yuan Longping succeeded in creating the world’s first high-yield hybrid rice in 1973. With five decades of research on hybrid rice varieties grown on the ground. Covering 9% of the world’s total arable land, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering has helped nearly 20% of the world’s population escape hunger. This hybrid rice variety can yield 20% higher than conventional rice varieties. After that, this rice variety was widely grown in China and many other regions around the world. Currently, about 16 million hectares of agricultural land in China is planted with this hybrid rice variety, accounting for 57% of the total rice area in the country, thereby helping to feed an additional 80 million people every year. Agronomist Vien Long Binh has contributed to making China one of the world’s leading rice producers. With this success and contribution, he is considered the “father” of hybrid rice. In recent years, scientist Vien Long Binh and his research team are still breeding and developing a hybrid rice variety that can be grown in saltwater environments. Scientist Vien Long Binh once said that he has two dreams, which is “enjoying the coolness under the shade of rice plants taller than a person’s head” and that hybrid rice can be widely grown around the world to solve the problem. global food shortage.