57 Yuan Longping

Yuan Longping

Time period:

1930 – 2021

Subject:

Agriculture (agronomy)

Biography:

Yuan Longping was born in Beijing in 1930 and grew up during the bloody and chaotic Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. After graduating from Southwest Agricultural College (now Southwest University) with a degree in agronomy in 1953, Yuan subsequently began teaching at an agricultural high school. His previous experiences with famine and poverty, along with the Great Chinese Famine starting in 1959, would drive him to research ways to solve food insecurity in China. Initially experimenting with sweet potatoes and watermelon, Yuan ultimately found success in rice.

Summary of their contributions:

In the late 1970s, he developed the world’s first hybrid rice strain through cross-pollination. The rice significantly increased yields by 20 to 30% compared to the conventional varieties and his innovation would help alleviate food problems in China. After this success, the methods of breeding hybrid rice would be shared with domestic and international agronomists for no profit. Yuan also donated the hybrid rice varieties to the international community in 1980 and even helped train farmers in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa to grow the rice.

Integration with the BC Secondary Science Curriculum:

Yuan Longping’s research and development of hybrid rice connects with the Life Sciences 11 and Environmental Sciences 11 curricula. In Life Sciences 11, students learn about artificial selection, GMOs, and trait inheritance, which ties in with the creation of hybrid rice varieties. On the other hand, the Environmental Science 11 concepts of ecosystem services to humans (food production) and human actions (specifically harvesting as well as resource extraction and consumption) work in tandem with the goals and outcomes of Yuan’s work.

Regarding curricular competencies, Yuan’s work can be used to:

• Contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through individual or collaborative approaches
• Implement multiple strategies to solve problems in real-life, applied, and conceptual situations
• Consider the role of scientists in innovation

References:

Wang, K. (2021). Yuan longping (1930–2021). Nature Plants, 7(7), 858-859. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-021-00962-6

Yuan longping: To feed the world. (2021, May 29). The Economist, 439(9247), 86. https://www.economist.com/obituary/2021/05/27/yuan-longping-died-on-may-22nd