Born in Qianyang, central China's Hunan Province, in 1930, Yuan graduated from Southwest Agriculture College in 1953 and devoted himself to agricultural education and research.

Yuan was a pioneer in hybrid rice research and was the first to develop hybrid rice in the world. His achievements helped to greatly solve the food shortage in the country, and provide a solution to worldwide starvation.

During a seminar at the Chinese Academy of Engineering on September 29, Yuan said he still had two major missions to accomplish: He hopes to push the hybrid rice yield to 18 metric tons per hectare and transform at least 6.7 million hectares of saline wasteland into breadbasket.