Yuan Longping, known as "the father of hybrid rice" whose high-yield crop accounts for 20 percent of global rice production, spoke about his dream at the session.

"I have two dreams. One is to relax in the cool shade of rice as tall as sorghum with grains as big as peanuts. The other dream is to develop a rice species that can yield 15,000 kg per hectare as soon as possible, and I also wish to train younger people to develop higher-yielding rice species," Yuan said.