The “Father of Hybrid Rice” will present his research on campus Tuesday. Yuan Longping, the 2004 World Food Prize Laureate, will speak in a seminar at Iowa State as part of the World Food Prize Symposium, which is taking place in Des Moines this week.

The World Food Prize was created in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, an Iowa native and 1970 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Longping will present his research on “super rice” production, said Kan Wang, associate professor of agronomy.

Longping’s research has centered on using specialized breeding techniques to create a higher yielding strain of rice, Wang said. Longping discovered the genetic basis in rice of heterosis, meaning there is an increased growth capacity found in crossbred organisms. The occurrence of heterosis was previously unknown in rice.

In 1974, Longping released a commercial rice strain called “Nan-you No. 2” which had a 20 percent higher yield than normal rice. Now, half of China’s rice production is hybrid rice, feeding about 60 million people a year.

Longping is the director-general of the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center in Changsha, Hunan, China. He has been awarded China’s Supreme Science and Technology Award, the 2001 Magsaysay Award and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Medal of Honor for Food Security. Longping and Monty Jones, of Sierra Leone, will be awarded the 2004 Food Prize at a ceremony in Des Moines on Thursday.

“[Longping’s] visit to campus is part of activities leading to the World Food Prize ceremony in Des Moines,” said Pat Miller, program manager of the Lectures Program.

Other ISU events related to the World Food Prize Symposium include the 2004 Norman Borlaug lecture and a poster contest.

The Norman Borlaug lecture will be given by the 2003 World Food Prize winner, Catherine Bertini. Bertini, the U.N. undersecretary general for management, who won the prize for making the United Nations’ world food program the largest humanitarian relief program in the world.

“Having a [U.N.] undersecretary general is a tremendous opportunity for students,” Miller said.

The Borlaug poster competition will take place Wednesday before Bertini’s lecture, when undergraduate and graduate participants will explain their displays.

Pat Murphy, professor of food science and human nutrition and poster contest coordinator, said the posters will address and present solutions to world food problems.

“This is the third annual Borlaug Poster Competition sponsored by the Nutritional Sciences Council at ISU,” Murphy said. “Winners will be awarded after Dr. Bertini’s lecture.”

Longping’s seminar will take place at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in room 1414 of the Molecular Biology Building.