Since the foundation of the People's Republic of China, China has made one after another outstanding achievements in agriculture technology, one of which is the successful development of indica hybrid rice. With the application of this technology since 1976, China's total rice cultivation lands have grown such rice, which added rice output by some 240 billion kilograms up till 1994.What’s more, this technology was exported to other countries.

The research of indica hybrid began in 1964, when a teacher from Hunan Province, Yuan Longping first put forward the idea of utilizing the heterosis in rice and initiated the research on hybrid rice in China. At the beginning, he discovered male-sterile rice. Then he brought forward the third hybriding paddy and carried out experiments on farmland. Yuan Longping made breakthrough in 1973. He was the first person to develop indica hybrid rice. The new technology was tested in many areas of South China in 1974 and 1975, and then extended to other areas. China became the first country that is capable of producing hybrid rice. Yuan Long-ping is the first scientist who successfully altered the self-pollinating characteristic of rice and realized large-scale farming of hybrid rice. This earned him the title "Farther of Hybrid Rice". The achievements of Yuan Longping greatly solved the food shortage, and provided as a solution the worldwide starvation. It is regarded as the fifth invention after China's Four Major Inventions, and is acclaimed as the Second Green Revolution.