Yuan Longping, dubbed as "father of high-yielding crossbred
rice", has urged the country's agrotechnicians to bring more
practical technologies to the countryside to improve farming
productivity.
Yuan, a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering and also a
recent member of the National Academy of Sciences of America, said
innovations in agriculture-related technologies and the promotion
and application of these technologies are key elements in upgrading
the productivity in the countryside.
The agrotechnicians should take the responsibility of
cultivating new technologies and convert them into real
productivity, said the 77-year-old scientist.
The urbanite-turned-farmer encouraged the technicians to breed
good seeds for farmers and come up with better land cultivation
technologies.
The big population of farmers, in the meantime, should be
offered with trainings and guidance on the application of these
technologies, Yuan said.
Yuan's achievement in cultivating high-yielding hybrid rice has
enabled China to raise 22 percent of the world's population on
merely seven percent of the world's arable land, since the country
initiated the research into the hybrid rice in the 1960s.
The country planted more than 373 million hectares of crossbred
rice with increased production totaling to more than 520 billion kg
from 1976 to 2006.
More than 20 countries had used the hybrid rice technology to
cultivate two million hectares of hybrid rice by the end of
2006.
(Xinhua News Agency May 29, 2007)