P R E S S   R E L E A S E

 
        An eminent scientist and agricultural researcher, Professor Yuan Longping is currently Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Director General of China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Centre, Honorary President of the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences in China and Vice-Chairman of Hunan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

        Professor Yuan graduated from Southwest Agriculture College, China in 1953 and has since devoted himself to agricultural education and research.  Professor Yuan was a pioneer in hybrid rice research and has made remarkable achievements in this area.  In the early 1970s, he succeeded in developing three strains of hybrid rice, namely male sterile, maintainer and restorer, and obtained the world's first high-yielding hybrid rice strain.  He is the first scientist who successfully altered the self-pollinating characteristic of rice and made large-scale farming of hybrid rice possible.  This earned him the title "Father of Hybrid Rice".  His pioneering work in hybrid rice breeding and production techniques has revolutionized rice cultivation in China, establishing China's world leading position in hybrid rice research, and made possible the feeding of 22% of the world population on only 7% of the world's total arable land. This breakthrough in rice breeding has made significant contributions to solving the food problem in China and the rest of the world.

        Professor Yuan's remarkable achievement in hybrid rice research won him numerous awards and honours from the United Nations and worldwide.  Among his many awards are Science Prize of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Gold Medal Award for the Outstanding Inventor of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization, Medal of Honour for Food Security and Sustainable Development of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rank Prize for Agronomy and Nutrition of the United Kingdom, and Fukui International Koshihikari Rice Prize of Japan.  He was awarded the first State Supreme Science and Technology Award by the Chinese Government in February 2001 to recognize his contributions to hybrid rice research.

        Professor Yuan Longping has collaborated with the Department of Biology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong in research on improvement of hybrid rice.  The project is subsumed under the University's Area-of-Excellence in Plant and Fungal Biotechnology, which is one of the first three Areas-of-Excellence funded by the University Grants Committee.  In July 2'01, he visited the Chinese University as Wei Lun Visiting Professor and delivered a public lecture on the recent developments of Chinese hybrid rice.  During his visit, he expedited and further materialized the research collaboration with Professor Samuel Sun and Professor Lam Hon-Ming of the Department of Biology at the Chinese University, and Professor Maurice Ku of the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University on an genetic enhancement programme of Chinese hybrid rice to further improve the grain yield, quality and stress resistance of the super hybrid rice for the 21st century.