Father of hybrid rice

In 1949, Yuan applied for Southwest Agricultural College and began his special connection with rice -- a staple food of the Chinese people that would become the focus of his lifelong research career.

A discovery of a peculiar wild rice species by Yuan in the southern island of Hainan in 1970 became the prelude of China's decades of hybrid rice research. Three years later, he cultivated the world's first high-yielding hybrid rice strain with three lines, namely, the male sterile, maintainer and restorer.

Hybrid rice has since been grown across the country and farmers reaped incredible output after switching to Yuan's hybrid varieties.

Hybrid rice recorded an annual yield about 20 percent higher than that of conventional rice strains-- meaning it could feed an extra 70 million people a year.