Yuan Longping was a Chinese agronomist and inventor. He was a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering known for developing the first hybrid rice varieties in the 1970s, part of the Green Revolution in agriculture. For his contributions, Yuan is known as the "Father of Hybrid Rice".
Yuan Longping in 1953 in Southwest University. Yuan is in the back row, third from the left.
Yuan Longping in 1962
Flowers as well as rice given by the public outside Xiangya Hospital after the death of Yuan.
People came to the Changsha Mingyangshan Funeral Parlour to mourn Yuan Longping, on 23 May 2021.
The Green Revolution, or the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields. These changes in agriculture began in developed countries in the early 20th century and spread globally until the late 1980s. In the late 1960s, farmers began incorporating new technologies such as high-yielding varieties of cereals, particularly dwarf wheat and rice, and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and controlled irrigation.
After World War II, newly implemented agricultural technologies, including pesticides and fertilizers as well as new breeds of high yield crops, greatly increased food production in certain regions of the Global South.
Increased use of irrigation played a major role in the green revolution.