Yuan Longping died on May 22nd

  • 📰 TheEconomist
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 43 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 21%
  • Publisher: 92%

United States Headlines News

United States Latest News,United States Headlines

A fifth of all rice grown globally now comes from hybrids that were developed by Yuan Longping

Then Yuan Longping woke up, laughing. The rice plants he had tended for decades at Anjiang and then Changsha in Hunan province, sowing and nurturing them, visiting daily on his motorbike to inspect them, were not quite there yet. But they still deserved their name of super rice. The leaves were straighter and taller than ordinary, and the grains plumper.

For this he won the Medal of the Republic, China’s highest, and the World Food Prize. An asteroid was named after him. There was talk of the Nobel, too. All that seemed just smoke to him. Though he was rich, from his shares in a seed company that used his name, he looked like a peasant, wiry as a twig, with his face leathered by sun and his big hands rough from “playing in the mud” all day.

In 1949, at the founding of Communist China, he had first met hunger on the roads. Between 1959 and 1961, in Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward to collectivise farming, he saw country people falling down dying in the fields. They had been driven to eating tree-bark, fern-roots, even white clay. At the college, too, there was so little to eat that he barely had energy to dig. He dreamed of bowls of steamed fat pork, but woke to chew on rice bran.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 6. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

People’s Bank of China fights to keep yuan from surgingOn Monday, commercial lenders were ordered to hold more of their foreign currency as reserves in the central bank to limit sales after the yuan hit a... thanks Blood Currency manipulator 🤣
Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »

Chinese yuan will become a top reserve currency sooner than expected, says Ray DalioNew for subscribers: Chinese yuan will become a top reserve currency sooner than expected, says Ray Dalio. Check out CNBCPro today. Pro what about bitcoin? Pro He loves CCP and not economic conditions of China. Pro
Source: CNBC - 🏆 12. / 72 Read more »

People’s Bank of China fights to keep yuan from surgingOn Monday, commercial lenders were ordered to hold more of their foreign currency as reserves in the central bank to limit sales after the yuan hit a... thanks Blood Currency manipulator 🤣
Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »

Buddy Van Horn, ‘Any Which Way You Can’ Director and Clint Eastwood’s Stunt Double, Dies at 92Wayne “Buddy” Van Horn, veteran stuntman who worked with Clint Eastwood on over 30 films and directed “Any Which Way You Can” and “The Dead Pool,” died May 11, a… Rip On Clints birthday? That sucks.
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »

Chinese yuan will become a top reserve currency sooner than expected, says Ray DalioNew for subscribers: Chinese yuan will become a top reserve currency sooner than expected, says Ray Dalio. Check out CNBCPro today. Pro what about bitcoin? Pro He loves CCP and not economic conditions of China. Pro
Source: CNBC - 🏆 12. / 72 Read more »

The Great American ReunionFamilies and friends are coming together after long separations as vaccinations rise; ‘My God, we’re back’ If Joe Biden's intelligent management of masks and vaccines brought America back! I'm not invited because I don't worship Trump. Oh well. LizCheneyForPresident2024
Source: WSJ - 🏆 98. / 63 Read more »