China bids farewell to top scientist
Print Edition
The passing of Chinese scientist Yuan Longping, dubbed “the father of hybrid rice,” set off an outpouring of mourning, gratitude and remembrance among the Chinese public.
Yuan, a household name in China, dedicated his life to reducing hunger and helped China cultivate the high-yielding hybrid rice needed to feed nearly one-fifth of the world’s population with less than 9 percent of its arable land.
The top rice scientist died of organ failure at age 91 on Saturday in a hospital in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province. Yuan had been under medical treatment after suffering a tumble in March when conducting research at a seed-breeding base in Hainan Province.
On China’s Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo, the news of Yuan’s passing has been viewed billions of times so far, with netizens from all walks of life expressing grief for the loss of a national hero.
“Three times a day, when we enjoy the fragrance of rice, you will be dearly remembered,” read a posted comment that has been liked more than 700,000 times.
In China, the academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering is a scientist deeply respected by the people, and also the beloved Grandpa Yuan, whose amiable and humorous personality garnered a lot of young fans.
Many people in Changsha bade farewell to Yuan on Saturday afternoon as the hearse slowly drove out of the Xiangya Hospital of Central South University at around 4pm.
“Rest in peace, Grandpa Yuan!” People lining up the sidewalks, braving rains, chanted repeatedly. Some of them kept running with the hearse, while passing vehicles all stopped and constantly honked horns to pay tribute.
On its way to the funeral home, the hearse made a detour to the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center located in Changsha, as Yuan’s family wished he could for the last time be near his workplace, colleagues and students.
Born in Beijing in 1930, Yuan succeeded in cultivating the world’s first high-yield hybrid rice strain in 1973, which recorded an annual yield 20 percent higher than existing varieties — meaning it could feed an extra 80 million people a year.
Over the next four decades, he continued to research and upgrade hybrid rice, which has now reached its third generation.
Yuan did not stop researching. In 2017, working with a Hunan agricultural school, he helped create a strain of low-cadmium indica rice for areas suffering from heavy metal pollution, reducing the amount of cadmium in rice by more than 90 percent. His more recent achievements included developing varieties of saline-alkali tolerant rice. In January, his team said they planned to use the rice to transform 6.7 million hectares of saline-alkali land in China over the next eight to 10 years.
He is survived by his wife, three sons and several grandchildren.
Worldwide, a fifth of all rice now comes from species created by hybrid rice following Yuan’s breakthrough discoveries, according to the website of the World Food Prize, which he won in 2004.
Qu Dongyu, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, honored Yuan’s life on Twitter on Saturday.
“He devoted his life to the research of hybrid rice, helping billions achieve food security,” he wrote. “You were my inspiration. May you rest in peace.”
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