The 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service

RESPONSE of  Yuan Longping
Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
31 August 2001 Manila, Philippines

Your Excellency President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, members of the Magsaysay Family, distinguished guests, trustees, fellow awardees, ladies and gentlemen:

It is my great honor and pleasure to attend this glorious ceremony to accept the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award.

First, I would like to express my hearty thanks to the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for recognizing the important role of hybrid rice in raising food yield and for setting a high value on my work in this research field.

The success in the development of hybrid rice is a major breakthrough in rice breeding, providing an effective approach to increase rice yield by a big margin. In recent years, about 16 million hectares of paddy field are cultivated with hybrid rice each year in China. The average yield of hybrid rice is 7 tons per hectare which outyields the conventional pure line varieties by more than 1.5 tons per hectare.

Our experiences showed that expansion of hybrid rice area is a most efficient and economic way to increase grain yield. At present, there are some 150 million hectares of rice in the world and the average yield is only 3 tons per hectare. According to FAO’S data, the acreage under hybrid rice in 1990 was 10% of the world’s rice area, but it produced 20% of total rice production. From this we can roughly calculate that if conventional rice were completely replaced by hybrid rice, total rice production in the world would be doubled, and this could meet one billion more people’s food requirements. Therefore, speeding up the development of hybrid rice in the world will be helpful to solve the starvation problems facing mankind.

There is no national boundary in science. Hybrid rice technology belongs not only to China but also to the whole world. For the welfare of people all over the world, I will continue to do my best to promote the development of hybrid rice in and outside China, especially in developing countries. Let hybrid rice make greater contributions to the whole world.

Thank you.