During international training courses in hybrid rice technology in past years, we would introduce students from different countries to Yuan Longping, the “Father of Hybrid Rice.” When we did so, we would also introduce another figure in the following words: M. S. Swaminathan, who has been acclaimed by Time magazine as one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century and who received the first World Food Prize in 1987, is a former Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). In our eyes, there is an inseparable bond between Dr. Swaminathan and Professor Yuan Longping.