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Yuan Longping
袁隆平
To feed the world
愿天下再無糧憂
Yuan Longping, developer of hybrid rice, died on May 22nd, aged 90
雜交水稻之父袁隆平于5月22日辭世,享年90歲
He was wandering in a ricefield of dreams. The plants were tall as sorghum, taller than a man.
他在理想的稻田中徜徉，水稻長勢喜人，有高粱那么高，甚至高過了人頭；
Their panicles hung full as brooms, and each grain was as big as a peanut.
沉甸甸的稻穗有掃把那么長，谷粒有花生那么大。
After walking a while he lay down in the leaf-shade with a friend, quite hidden.
走了一會，他和朋友就躺在禾下乘涼，誰也看不到他們。
A rest was a good idea, because the wonder-plants went on and on. In fact, they covered the world.
休息一下是個好主意，神奇水稻的長勢仍在繼續(xù)，它們遍布了全球。
Then Yuan Longping woke up, laughing.
這時，袁隆平就會大笑著醒來。
The rice plants he had tended for decades at Anjiang and then Changsha in Hunan province, sowing and nurturing them, visiting daily on his motorbike to inspect them, were not quite there yet.
他在湖南安江和長沙照料了幾十年的水稻，播種、培育，每天騎摩托車去查看長勢。這些水稻目前還沒有達到理想的水平，
But they still deserved their name of super rice.
但也絕對配得上“超級稻”的稱號。
The leaves were straighter and taller than ordinary, and the grains plumper.
比起普通水稻，超級稻的葉片更直更高，谷粒也更飽滿，
They had all the vigour of the wild strain that he and his team had found,
延續(xù)了之前發(fā)現(xiàn)的野生水稻的全部優(yōu)勢。
after much searching, beside a railway line in Hainan in 1970 and had cross-bred, over careful years, with the domesticated variety.
1970年，經(jīng)過大量搜尋，袁隆平團隊在海南的一條鐵路沿線發(fā)現(xiàn)了這些野生品種，經(jīng)過多年的精心栽培，他們成功實現(xiàn)了與已馴化品種的雜交。
Sceptics told him he was wasting his time, since rice was a self-pollinator.
有人質(zhì)疑他浪費時間，因為水稻屬自花傳粉作物。
He believed that cross-breeding was universal and, besides, that it always made the offspring stronger.
但袁隆平堅信雜交現(xiàn)象普遍存在，甚至讓新生的作物更強壯。
The figures spoke for themselves. With his new hybrid rice the annual yield was 20-30% higher.
數(shù)據(jù)就是鐵證。新雜交水稻年產(chǎn)量提高了20-30%，
This meant that at least 60m more people could be fed every year. In Yunnan province more than 17,000 kilograms had been produced per hectare.
意味著每年可以吃飽飯的人又多了6000多萬。在云南省，每公頃水稻產(chǎn)量超過17000公斤。
China’s rice crop had risen from 57m tonnes in 1950 to 195m in 2017; from food deficiency, to food security.
中國的水稻產(chǎn)量從1950年的5700萬噸增加到2017年的1.95億噸，成功從糧食短缺過度到糧食安全得到保障。
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