Yuan Longping, who is popularly known as the "father of hybrid rice," was given another award of up to 3 million yuan (about US$361,446) in Hunan Province Thursday.
The award was given to commend Yuan's important contributions to hybrid rice research.
Yuan, together with Wu Wenjun, a Chinese mathematician, Monday won the State Supreme Science and Technology Award for the year 2000 at a grand meeting held in Beijing. The award, which carried a 5 million yuan (about US$602,410) bonus for each specialist, was designed to commend the two experts for their contributions in their respective fields.
Yuan, now a research fellow with Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center and also an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has spent most of his time doing research on hybrid rice in this central Chinese province of Hunan.
The hybrid rice developed by a team Yuan headed has been grown on half of the country's total rice cultivation fields since the 1960s, which has added some 300 billion kilograms to the country's grain output.
(Xinhua 02/22/2001)
