Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice, passed away in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, on May 22. He was 91.

Following his last wishes and the current epidemic prevention and control situation, his last rites were held at the Mingyangshan Funeral Home in Changsha. Long lines of admirers queued up in an orderly way at the hall in the funeral home, carrying the traditional white and yellow flowers to pay their last respects. An online condolence ceremony was held as well where still more people paid their tributes by offering flowers and lighting candles, remembering him in different ways.

Though Yuan, who was also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, is no more, he will continue to live in people’s hearts. When the news of his death came, people remembered afresh his two dreams: one was to enjoy the cool under the shade of his hybrid rice that can grow as high as the sorghum and the other was growing towering stalks of rice that covered the whole world, which was a metaphor for planting hybrid, high-yield rice throughout the world to eradicate global hunger.

The two dreams show the kind of person he was: a high-minded man who put the country and the people before all.

Despite his fame and awards—in 2019 he received the Medal of the Republic, China’s highest order of honor—he maintained a simple lifestyle, dedicated to addressing the global issue of food insecurity.  

In the 1990s, an American economist, Lester Brown, raised a question in his book, Who Will Feed China?: Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet, in which he questioned whether there would be enough food in the 21st century to feed China, the most populous country in the world. At that time not only Brown but many other Western scholars also believed that in the future, global food production would not be able to meet the needs of the Chinese.

Facing the fear of the century, Yuan used five decades of his research, work and experience to provide the solution. With their unremitting effort, he and his team of dedicated agro-scientists came up with the three-line and two-line methods to grow hybrid rice with greater yield. The first method involves crossbreeding three different strains of rice seeds and the latter only two, which reduces the time, cost and labor substantially. China’s Ministry of Agriculture implemented a four-phase super-rice breeding plan using improved hybrid rice seeds, which has ensured grain security for China’s 1.4 billion people, making China the first country in the world to successfully utilize hybrid rice production. In addition, Chinese scientists have worked with other countries around the world, imparting the technology and experience and ensuring food for countless more people. 

Starting in 1968, Yuan Longping came to the Hainan National Breeding and Multiplication Base almost every winter for research on the hybridization of new rice varietals. This photo shows Yuan and some of his colleagues during a progress check at a 100 mu (6 ha) test paddy in Sanya in March 2004. (Photo by Zhang Jie /Hainan Daily)
 

On April 15th, 2004, Yuan Longping was photographed introducing his new achievements in rice breeding to scientific elites from all over the world at a paddy near Lizhigou in Sanya City. (Photo by Zhang Jie /Hainan Daily)

To realize his dream of hybrid rice providing food security for the entire world, Yuan spent his entire adult life traveling from one corner of the globe to the other. Since the 1980s, his team ran training courses in hybrid rice technology globally and trained over 14,000 hybrid rice technicians in more than 80 developing countries, helping them develop and improve hybrid rice production. Many African countries are among the biggest beneficiaries.   

Their efforts have led to hybrid rice being planted in the United States, India, Brazil and many other countries. It is grown in over 8 million hectares worldwide. The average yield of the rice is 2 tons more per hectare than the local superior varieties. But despite the results, Yuan was not satisfied. Even at the age of 90, he was still working in the paddy fields, savoring the cool grass under his feet and spurred by his desire to create better seeds to guarantee food and clothing for all. 

The highest affirmation of his lifelong contribution came from the simple messages ordinary people left on various Internet platforms, saying: Grandpa Yuan, wish you all the best in paradise. We shall eat well during every meal (to remember and honor you). Regarded as the guardian of rice fields, Yuan’s life’s work was to bring hope to the people struggling with poverty and starvation, make outstanding contribution to food security, eradicate poverty, ensure adequate food and clothing for all and benefit people around the world.

Today we commemorate Yuan Longping not only because of his outstanding contribution but also to learn from his unpretentious, upstanding nature and to imbibe his dedication to scientific research, his courage to innovate and his selflessness. Though he worked till the last, Yuan’s dream still remains unfulfilled. Hunger and poverty still stalk humanity. So the best memorial we can build to the father of hybrid rice is to wipe these two enemies off the face of the earth.