This Day, That Year

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On June 6, 1981, Yuan Longping won the first national special invention prize for developing varieties of hybrid rice. He has spent his life working to feed a world hungry for the commodity, as seen in the item on Nov 3, 1982, from China Daily.

In 1973, Yuan successfully developed a special type of long-grained hybrid rice, and the following year he commercially released a hybrid rice variety with 20 percent higher yields, putting China in the global lead in rice production. For the achievement, he was dubbed the "Father of Hybrid Rice".