On October 11th, 2024, in a display window of the Museum of the Origin of Hybrid Rice, several “Huaihua Daily News” were placed. Beside the window, it was prominently introduced: series of reports on Huaihua seeking “the truth of rice”. In front of the shop window, many tourists stop to watch and immerse themselves in those unforgettable years.

The rice cultivation culture in Huaihua has a long history and holds a pivotal position in the history of rice cultivation in China. The Gaomiao Cultural Site in Anjiang has excavated carbonized rice grains from 7,400 years ago, tracing the history of Chinese civilization back over 7,000 years. Yuan Longping worked and lived here for 37 years at Anjiang Agricultural School, a river away from the Gaomiao Site, and wrote the legend of “a seed benefiting the world”.

In 2023, it was the 50th anniversary of Academician Yuan Longping’s breakthrough in the three line matching of indica hybrid rice. To pay tribute to that rich and glorious history, Huaihua Daily has carefully planned the series of reports on Huaihua seeking “the truth of rice”, organized key journalists to carefully collect and write, and launched four original works, “Rice Source”, “Rice Soul”, “Rice Landscape” and “Rice Road”, introducing the past and present of Huaihua’s rice cultivation civilization, recording Yuan’s struggle to overcome the difficulties of hybrid rice, demonstrating Huaihua’s commitment to doing a good job in “seed” articles in the new era, and paving a new “rice road” of high-level open and high-quality development. After the launch of this series of reports, it caused strong reactions both inside and outside the province, with hundreds of media outlets reposting and nearly one billion views.

“The Huaihua seeking‘the truth of rice’series of reports is like a carefully compiled chronicle of the development of hybrid rice in Huaihua,” said the person in charge of Anjiang Hybrid Rice Museum. As an important place to showcase hybrid rice culture and scientific research achievements, collecting this series of reports is not only a recognition of media reporting achievements, but also adds new materials and connotations to the inheritance and promotion of hybrid rice culture, allowing the audience to have a deeper understanding of the story behind the invention of hybrid rice, and to feel every important node in the process of hybrid rice from scientific research to widespread promotion from the perspective of news reporting.

(Translated by Tian Xia)