参考译文

　　The Contribution of Science and Technology to Agriculture

　　In the sphere of agricultural science and technology, China has been narrowing its gap with the advanced countries. The contribution rate of scientific and technological progress to China's agriculture has increased from 20 percent in 1949 to 4.2 percent. The sci-tech agricultural departments have made tremendous progress in bio-technology, new and high technology and basic research, and the cultivation of plant cells and tissues, haploid breeding and the research on its application have already reached world advanced level. Bilinear hybrid rice, hybrid corn breeding, and multi-crop planting technologies have reached or got close to world advanced level.

　　In addition, an important breakthrough has been made in the utilization of the advantages of hybrid beans.

　　Since 1949, Chinese agricultural scientists have bred over 40 new crops, including nearly 5,000 high-yield, good-quality varieties with strong resistance. Thus the major crops have been renovated four to five times, with an increase of yield by 10 to 30 percent each time. The per-hectare yield of grain crops has increased from l. 16 tons in 1950 to 4.82 tons, an increase of over 1.8 times.

　　The Chinese scientist Yuan Longping, who is internationally renowned as "Father of Hybrid Rice" for his tremendous achievements in the breeding of hybrid rice, has rewritten China's history of rice cultivation in the second half of the 20th century and has made extraordinary contributions to the solution of mankind's "food" problem. Thanks to his contributions, 51 percent of China's paddy-fields is used to grow fine varieties of hybrid rice, with an average increase of 20 percent in yield.

　　To spread advanced sci-tech achievements to the countryside, relevant government departments have carried out a number of sci-tech programs directly geared to the economic development of rural areas, such as the Spark Program, the Promotion Plan of important Scientific Achievements, the Bumper Harvest Plan, and the Prairie Fire Program, which have played an important role in promoting farmers' sci-tech education.

　　Meanwhile, agricultural departments have imported more than 100,000 crops and nursery stocks, and have cultivated a number of new varieties of rice, corn and wheat. Many advanced technologies have found extensive application in agricultural production.