Yuan Longping, a Chinese scientist and educator, died at the age of 91 in Hunan last month. He was called the “Father of Hybrid Rice(杂交水稻)” and he helped ______ people around the world.

Yuan Longping was the first person to develop a kind of hybrid rice which helped fight _____ in China. Food was a big problem in China in the past. This was because China had 22 percent of the world’s population, but only 7 percent of its ______. In the 1960s, Chinese people had a difficult time. Millions of people died because they had no food. As an agronomy teacher, Yuan was very ______ to see this. “How can I help them have enough food?” he thought. He decided to work on a kind of hybrid rice. It has a high output(产量).

At that time, other scientists didn’t think hybrid rice was worth ______. But Yuan and his team worked on it every day. They took very good care of their rice seeds.

At last, in 1973, they grew a new kind of hybrid rice. This seed is ______. Farmers can grow it in many different kinds of farmland and in bad ______. It can also fight disease. Its output was much ______ than common kinds of rice. With the new kind, about 70,000,000 people could have food every year!

Yuan solved the food problem in China. But he was ______ working on rice when he was very old. Before he retired, he hoped to grow rice in the sea!

Yuan once said he had two dreams — to “enjoy the ______ under the rice crops(庄稼) taller than men” and that hybrid rice could be grown all over the world to help solve the global food problem.