12. For many Chinese families, rice is an important part of almost every meal. Where does rice come from?Yuan Longping and his team work to grow rice on the farmland(耕地).
China has 22% of the world's population(人口), but only 7% of its farmland,
food was a big problem in China in the past. In the 1960s, there was a terrible
famine in China. Millions of people died because they had no food. Yuan taught farming at school at that time and he was really sad to see this. "How can I help them have enough food?" he thought. He decided to work on a kind of hybrid rice(杂交水稻)because it has higher output(产量).
At that time, other scientists didn't believe hybrid rice had much value(价值). But Yuan and his team worked on it every day. They took very good care of their rice.
At last, in 1973, they grew a new type of hybrid rice. Farmers can grow it in many different kinds of farmland and also in bad weather. It can fight disease, too. Its output is much greater than common kinds of rice. With the new type, about 70, 000, 000 people could have food every year!In 2004 he won World Food Prize.
Yuan solved the food problem in China. He also helped many countries of the world grow more rice.