YUAN LONGPING

Yuan Longping, a Chinese agricultural scientist whose breakthroughs in hybrid rice brought food security to China and transformed agriculture worldwide, died aged 9
Yuan is celebrated in China as the “father of hybrid rice” for his contributions to agriculture.
In 1970s, he developed “the first hybrid rice combination called Nan-you No. 2 which, due to heterosis — a phenomenon in which the progeny of two distinctly different parents grow faster, yield more, and resist stress better than either parent.
Farmers around the world have benefitted from his techniques as hybrid rice spread throughout Asia, Africa and the Americas.

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