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My lifelong pursuit is to keep all the people away from hunger. - Yuan Longping Reading and thinking A PIONEER FOR ALL PEOPLE 造福全人类的开拓者
Yuan Longping, known as the “father of hybridrice”, is one of China’s most famous scientists. Yet, he considers himself a farmer because he continually works the land in his research. Indeed, his slim but strong body is just like that of millions of Chinese farmers, to whom he has devoted his life. 被誉为“杂交水稻之父”的袁隆平是中国最著名的科学家之一。然而，他把自己看作是一位农民。因为在研究过程中他不断耕耘土地。确实，他瘦削但结实的身躯，与其为之奉献毕生的千千万万的中国农民无异。
Yuan Longping was born in 1930 in Beijing. His parents wanted him to pursue a career in science or medicine. However, what concerned him most was that farmers often had poor harvests and sometimes even had a serious shortage of food to eat. To tackle this crisis, he chose to study agriculture and received an education at Southwest Agricultural College in Chongqing. 袁降平1930年出生于北京。他的父母希望他从事科学或医学职业，然而，他最关心的是农民经常粮食歉收，有时甚至出现严重的食物短缺。为了应对这一危机，他选择学习农业，在位于重庆的西南农学院接受教育。
After graduating in 1953, he worked as a researcher. Yuan Longping realised that larger fields were not the solution. Instead, farmers needed to boost yields in the fields they had. How this, could be done was a challenging question at the time. Yuan was convinced that the answer could be found in the creation of hybrid rice. A hybrid is a cross between two or more varieties of a species. One characteristic of hybrids is that they usually attain a higher yield than conventional crops. However, whether it was possible to develop a hybrid of self-pollinating plants such as rice was a matter of great debate. The common assumption then was that it could not be done. Through intense effort, Yuan overcame enormous technical difficulties to develop the first hybrid rice that could be used for farming in 1974. This hybrid enabled farmers to expand their output greatly. 1953年大学毕业后，他成为一名科研人员。袁隆平意识到，解决问题的办法并不是扩大农田面积，而是农民们需要提高他们已有土地上农作物的产量。如何实现这一目标成为当时一个颇具挑战性的问题。袁隆平确信答案可以在杂交水稻的培育中找到。杂交指的是两个或者两个以上品种的交叉。杂交作物的一个特点就是它们通常能获得比传统作物更高的产量。然而，是否可能开发出水稻等自花授粉作物的杂交品种，仍众说纷纭。当时普遍认为这是不可能实现的。历经干辛万苦，袁隆平攻克了艰巨的技术难题，在1974年开发出了可用于耕作的第一代杂交水稻。这种杂交水稻极大地提高了农民的产量。
Today, it is estimated that about 60 percent of domestic rice consumption in China is comprised of crops generated from Yuan’s hybrid strains, and his strains have allowed China’s farmers to produce around 200 million tons of rice per year. Yuan’s innovation has helped feed not just China, but many other countries that depend on rice as well, such as India and Vietnam. Because of his invaluable contributions, Yuan Longping has received numerous awards both in China and abroad. 据估算，现在中国国内消费的稻米有大约60%来自袁隆平的杂交水稻品种形成的作物，这些品种(形成的作物)让中国农民每年能够生产出大约两亿吨稻米。袁隆平的创新不仅养活了中国，也养活了以稻米为主食的许多其他国家，如印度和越南。袁隆平凭其不可估量的贡献，在国内外获奖无数。
Given that Yuan’s hybrids have made him quite wealthy, one might think he would retire to a life of leisure. However, this is far from the case. Deep down, Yuan is still very much a farmer at heart. As a man of the soil, he cares little for celebrity or money. Instead, he makes large donations to support agricultural research. 鉴于袁隆平开发杂交水稻而变得相当富有，有人会认为他会退休享受悠闲的生活。但是，事实远非如此。实际上，袁隆平在内心深处仍然是一位农民。身为土地之子，他不在乎名利，反而捐赠巨资支持农业研究。
What impresses people most about Yuan Longping is his ongoing ability to fulfill his dreams. Long ago, he envisioned rice plants as tall as sorghum, with each ear of rice as big as a broom, and each grain of rice as huge as a peanut. He succeeded in producing a kind of rice that could feed more people at home and abroad. His latest vision for “seawater rice” has also become a reality, and potentially opened up nearly one million square kilometres of salty land in China for rice production. Despite his advanced years, Yuan Longping is still young at heart and full of vision, and everyone is waiting to see what he will dream up next. 袁隆平给人们印象最深的是他不断实现梦想的能力。很早以前，他就设想水稻长得与高粱一样高，每支稻穗与扫帚一样大，每粒稻米与花生一样饱满。他成功培育出能够养活更多人的水稻品种，甚至出口海外。他新近的“海水稻”愿景也已经成为现实，有望在中国开辟近100万平方公里的盐碱地用于水稻生产。虽年事已高，但袁隆平仍然保持年轻的心态，而且满怀憧憬，大家都在期待他的下一个不同寻常的想法。 |
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