Wang Huayong:Big-Time Rice

Agriculture serves as the foundation of a country， and in a remote village， growing rice is the foundation of peoples livelihood. So it is for Wang Huayong， a delegate to the 19th CPC National Congress. He carries a particularly heavy burden， however： As a village Party chief， he is constantly endeavoring to grow more and better rice.

Wang， 47， now serves as Party secretary of Zhaojiachong Village in Yangguao Township of Longhui County， Shaoyang City， in central Chinas Hunan Province.

In the late 1990s， Wang worked for a brick factory in Xiangxiang City， Hunan Province， where he earned his first windfall. At almost the same time， the grain supply-demand relationship on the international market changed. The previous balanced demand-supply relation no longer existed， leading to a surge in food prices before the “world food crisis” in the early 21st Century. In an article in The Economist titled “The End of Cheap Food，” the editors noted that by the end of 2007， the magazines food-price index reached its highest point since the publications founding in the 1840s.

Against this backdrop， Wang decided to return to rural areas and become a farmer again. The migrant worker turned farmerentrepreneur tried his hand at rice growing in 2009 after contracting 156 mu （10.4 hectares） of farmland through an individual land transfer in Leifeng Village of Yangguao Township. He planned to perform high-yield testing on super rice. Known as “super rice”in China， hybrid rice is produced by crossbreeding different strains of rice. About 65 percent of the Chinese depend on rice as a staple food. After a successful test， Wang shared his scientific production techniques and experience with 314 farming households around Yangguao Township and helped them grow more than 1，100 mu （74 hectares） of super rice.

In 2011， Wangs team managed a yield of 926.6 kilograms of super rice per mu（0.07 hectares）， breaking the world record in rice output and solving a tough problem concerning the yield of super rice that even troubled Chinas “father of hybrid rice”Yuan Longping.

Wang adopted the motto—“develop hybrid rice and benefit the world”—after inspiration from Chinese agricultural scientist and educator Yuan Longping. Yuan was also Wangs mentor in growing super rice. Wang said Yuans message motivated him to help local farmers grow good rice and achieve a massive output of super rice surpassing 1，000 kilograms per mu.endprint