With the passing of Chinese scientist Yuan Longping, China and the world have lost one of the greatest agricultural scientists on our planet, and I have lost a great friend, Kenneth Quinn, president emeritus of the World Food Prize Foundation, said.
Quinn, also vice chairman of the Yuan Longping International Rice Development Forum, shared his memory of the father of hybrid rice in a written interview with Xinhua on Sunday.
Yuan greatly reduced hunger and provided farmers with surplus income through his discovery of hybrid rice and the development of seeds that could triple and quadruple production during the early part of China s economic and agricultural transformation in the 1970s and 1980s, Quinn said.
2021-05-24 04:40:36 GMT2021-05-24 12:40:36(Beijing Time) Xinhua English
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Bidding farewell to father of hybrid rice By ZHAO XINYING in Beijing, ZHAO HUANXIN in Washington, YANG HAN,ZHAO HUANXIN,YANG HAN and PRIME SARMIENTO in Hong Kong | China Daily | Updated: 2021-05-24 08:12 Share CLOSE People pay tribute to agricultural pioneer Yuan Longping on Sunday at his former workplace, the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center, in Changsha, Hunan province. Yuan died on Saturday at age 91. [Photo by Yang Huafeng/China News Service]
Yuan remembered for breakthroughs in developing high-yield strains of crop
When a hearse drove out of Xiangya Hospital, affiliated with Central South University, in Changsha, Hunan province, at about 4 pm on Saturday, people gathered on the roadside in the rain to see it off.
People mourn for late father of hybrid rice in rain
Xinhua
24 May 2021, 19:18 GMT+10
CHANGSHA, May 24 (Xinhua) Despite the raining weather, a large number of people on Sunday came to a local funeral parlor in Changsha, central China s Hunan Province, to pay homage to Yuan Longping, known as the father of hybrid rice, who passed away on Saturday.
Since 10 a.m., mourners have come incessantly and formed long queue in rain, holding flowers for the late top rice scientist. They included the elderly, college students and children with their parents, many of them from other cities.
Yuan, renowned for developing the first high-yield hybrid rice strain that relieved countless people of hunger, died of organ failure at 91 on Saturday.
Farewell, Yuan Longping, ‘father of hybrid rice’
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People line up to pay homage to deceased Chinese agronomist Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice, at the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center in China’s Changsha City, a major workplace of the top scientist, May 23, 2021. (Photo: China News Service/Yang Huafeng)
The globally renowned Chinese agronomist passed away at 13:07 BJT on Saturday at the age of 91.
The top Chinese scientist, who had developed the first hybrid rice strain that pulled countless people out of hunger, died of illness in a hospital in Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province.
Having spent over five decades in hybrid rice research, the academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering had helped China achieve a great wonder feeding nearly one-fifth of the world s population with less than 9 percent of the world s total land.