Bidding farewell to 'father of hybrid rice'

Benefiting the world

Developing hybrid rice to benefit people globally was another of Yuan's lifelong pursuits. To realize this ambition, he was committed to promoting hybrid rice internationally for a long time.

To date, this rice has been planted in large areas of India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, the US, Brazil, Madagascar, among other countries.

According to a report by consultancy Future Market Insights, hybrid rice seeds are being cultivated on 4.5 million hectares of land in Asian rice-producing countries, excluding China.

In the 1980s, agricultural centers in the Philippines and Vietnam started collaborating with the International Rice Research Institute to develop hybrid rice varieties.

According to studies, hybrid rice out-yielded existing inbred varieties by an average of 21 percent and 17 percent respectively in Vietnam and the Philippines.

The Philippines is a key location for joint research with China on hybrid rice varieties, thanks to the establishment of the Philippine-Sino Center for Agricultural Technology.

Hybrid rice varieties are grown on more than 10 percent of arable land in the Philippines, boosting the country's rice output by 2.4 million tons a year.

According to Philippine government statistics, this has helped feed 15 million people, or 14 percent of the country's population, based on an annual per capita rice consumption of 160 kilograms.

In Vietnam, Chinese hybrid rice was introduced into the Red River Delta region in the 1990s. According to the Access to Seeds Index 2019 published by the World Benchmarking Alliance, Vietnam imports 70 percent to 80 percent of the formal seed used, including hybrid rice seed. China is the main supplier of hybrid rice seed to Vietnam.

Agricultural research institutes in Vietnam have also taken part in activities held by China in Southeast Asian countries, such as demonstrating and promoting tropical hybrid rice projects.

In 2015, Yuan visited Cambodia to promote hybrid rice, with the aim of planting 300,000 hectares of this crop in the country within three years, according to Xinhua.