A common cause: China's global contributions to food security

How powerful can one seed be? As food insecurity remains an acute global challenge, China's hybrid rice has provided an answer.

In June 2025, Musa Darboe, a farmer from Gambia, traveled over 12,000 kilometers to lay newly harvested rice in front of the grave of Yuan Longping, "the father of hybrid rice", in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, China. This is not only a story from the fields of Hunan to farms across Africa, but also an illustration of China's long journey from feeding itself to helping the rest of the world fight hunger.

Carlos Aldeco, the Food and Agriculture Organization representative in China, acknowledged that China has been doing excellent work in terms of food security and grain production. Zhao Bing from the World Food Programme in China noted that rice is a very important crop and suggested that if one wants to help African countries achieve food security, focusing on rice and rice value chain development would be crucial.

Yuan Longping once said that people are like seeds, and one should strive to be a good seed. One seed, one hope.

Watch this documentary to see how Chinese agricultural experts used hybrid rice to provide an Eastern solution to global food insecurity.

(A production of China Daily Opinion Channel)