Chinese and African scientists were Monday named winners of the 250,000-dollar World Food Prize for helping farmers produce more rice.
Yuan Longping, the head of China's National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Centre, and Monty Jones, from Sierra Leone and a former senior rice breeder at the West Africa Rice Development Centre, were announced the prize winners at a ceremony at the US State Department.
The award, sponsored by US businessman and philanthropist John Ruan, is considered to be the Nobel Prize for food and agriculture.
Their "breakthrough scientific achievements have significantly increased food security for millions of people from Asia to Africa," said World Food Prize Foundation President Kenneth Quinn at the ceremony. It was attended by US Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) chief Jacques Diouf, among other dignitaries.
Quinn said it was particularly fitting that the two pioneering rice breeders be honoured during the 2004 UN International Year of Rice, the staple diet of more than three billion people around the world.
Yuan was selected for his "breakthrough achievement" in developing the genetic tools necessary for hybrid rice breeding in the 1970s which led to the world's first successful and widely grown high-yielding hybrid rice varieties, a statement by the organisers said.
Jones was selected for developing in the 1990s the "New rice for Africa" by successfully crossing Asian and African strains to produce drought and pest-resistant, high-yielding new rice varieties, described as an "unprecedented feat."
The prizes will be formally presented in October.
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