Yuan Longping, known as China's "Father of Hybrid Rice," inspects the new breed in the fields in Hekou Township in Xiangtan City, central China's Hunan Province, Sept. 29, 2017. - Xinhua
SHANGHAI/BEIJING, May 22 (Reuters): Chinese agronomist Yuan Longping, who was known for developing the first hybrid rice strains, died at age 91 in the central province of Hunan on Saturday, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Yuan, born in September 1930, helped China come up with the hybrid rice needed to feed nearly one-fifth of the world's population with less than 9% of the world's land, Xinhua said in a story in 2019.
