"Remembering Elder Yuan The Eternal Light" (3): Don't waste every grain, live up to your life's work

Text/Cheng Feng

At 13:07 on May 22, 2021, Yuan Longping died of multiple organ failure in Changsha at the age of 91.

The "circle of friends" was surprised by the news of Elder Yuan's death, and his heart sank. I heard that although Elder Yuan is more than ninety years old, he is still active in the front line of scientific research, committed to increasing production and income, cultivating "sea rice", how suddenly ...

We do not want to lose you, a great people scientist. But you still passed away, left us, and left this country that you loved so much and loved you deeply.

This country has given you all the honors it can give, the country's highest science and technology award, the pioneer of reform, the order of the republic... A "Yuan Lao" carries the gratitude and respect of many Chinese people for you. In the poverty alleviation indicator "two worries and three guarantees", the first item is "no worries to eat", and your hybrid rice is an important guarantee for winning the battle against poverty. We thank you and admire you for making Chinese's rice bowl more stable and building an important cornerstone of national security.

Maybe it's luck that you accidentally found a rice plant with a special trait in the agricultural school test field, maybe it's the luck of Chinese, it's the luck of humans, let you see the rice with the special trait. As a graduate of agronomy, you are keenly aware of the "mystery" and the persistence of asking questions, so that you decide to completely solve the puzzle. With a rigorous attitude of "bold assumptions and careful verification", you continue to forge ahead and overcome difficulties, although you have experienced repeated failures and tasted the grief of the test seedlings being completely uprooted and destroyed, but these have not stopped you from moving forward until the success of the indica hybrid rice three-line matching.

In your youth, you set your ambition to "defeat the threat of hunger with agricultural science and technology", what a lofty ideal ambition, a patriotic and worried heart! For thousands of years, how many Chinese people have been worried about basically eating and wearing, "long and too much breath to cover up the drooling, mourning the many difficulties of the people's livelihood" and "and the vast buildings in Ande, sheltering the world from the cold and the happy faces", which has plagued China for thousands of years, has finally been completely solved in our generation. You are the "pioneer of poverty" and the "buster of poverty", and it is precisely because you have an "idealist" and a "doer" who is committed to serving the country and a "doer" who is dedicated to the country that the problem of absolute poverty can be completely solved, and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation can be just around the corner.

The best way to remember is respect, it is to continue. To remember you is to respect your hard work, not to waste every grain, not to live up to your life's work; to remember you, is to continue your spirit, in the road to happiness for the people to continue to forge ahead, with sweat to write worthy of the heart, worthy of the achievements of the times.