“Mr. Yuan Longping’s contribution to strengthening Pakistan’s agriculture and rural economy was both outstanding and transformational. Known as the Father of Hybrid Rice, Mr. Longping, introduced hybrid rice in Pakistan which changed Pakistan’s landscape,” said Mr. Shahzad Malik, Chairman Guard Basmati Rice while talking to Gawadar Pro.
Mr. Shahzad informed that, two decades ago, his company entered into a joint venture with Mr. Longping’s Yuan Longping High-Tech Agriculture Company Ltd. to supply hybrid rice technology to Pakistan and the co-operation between the two companies has deepened and widened over the years.
In an extraordinary gesture to pay homage to Mr. Yuan Longping, after his passing away, his company ran statements in major newspapers of Pakistan. The statements beautifully captured services of Mr. Longping rendered for Pakistan’s agriculture and business community and acknowledged that his services played a critical role in enhancing Pakistan’s rice annual exports to 2.3 billion dollars. The advertisements termed the death of Mr. Longing a sad loss not only for “Chinese people but for entire mankind”.
Mr. Shahzad expressed his heartfelt feelings over the loss of Mr. Longping and stressed that due to his services ‘income of rice producing farmers doubled in Pakistan as yield per acre doubled due to the introduction of hybrid rice”.
He maintained that “our company ran advertisements because we wanted people in Pakistan to know that Mr. Longping was an unsung hero and the whole country after his death must realize that his great contributions make Pakistan-China ties even stronger at people-to-people levels”.
He added that his company is seeking to expand its business in China and urged that both China and Pakistan must reinforce their co-operation in technological realms of agricultural production. He hoped that in post-Covid world, business cooperation between Pakistan and China will gain impetus and the business community will explore opportunities existing between both countries. He was also hopeful of CPEC and termed it as an “incredibly promising project for regional and global growth”.
