Wang Yihang

Wang Yihang, 70, nonpartisan,is currently the honorary director of Potato Research Institute of Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, postgraduate teacher at Gansu Agricultural University, counselor of Gansu provincial government, and a member of the Potato Committee of Crop Science Society of China, and was elected as a meritorious scientific and technological worker of Gansu province in 2009.

Wang, a Han Chinese, has been engaged in potato breeding and cultivation, tissue culture and toxin-free rapid propagation research and industrialization development for more than 30 years. He has successively bred 12 new potato varieties of Gansu potato series, and promoted a total cultivated area of more than 40 million mu (around 2.67 hectares) in Gansu and its surrounding provinces and regions such as Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Shaanxi and Sichuan, making outstanding contributions to the development of the potato industry in Gansu province and even northwest China region at large. In particular, Wang's studies of late blight resistant breeding and high starch breeding have reached the domestic and the international advanced levels, respectively.

The technical system of high-efficiency, low-cost toxin-free rapid propagation of seed potatoes and the toxin-free seed potato promotion network that Wang spearheaded have opened a new landscape in the potato toxin-free breeding industry in Gansu province. Nine scientific and technological research results of Wang won awards and he has published more than 30 academic papers. The scientific research team led by Wang was selected as a Gansu provincial-level science and technology innovation team in 2006.

In 2004, Wang started to enjoy the special government allowances of the State Council. In 2008, he was selected as a potato scientist in the "China Agriculture Research System of the Ministry of Agriculture.

In 2009, he was named as the first-level Leading Talent of Gansu Province and won the "May 1st Labor Medal of China" and "National Pacesetter for Promoting Agriculture Science and Technology", "Outstanding Contribution Award of China Association for Science and Technology for Western Development", "Nomination of National Moral Exemplar", "Touching Gansu figure at the 60th Anniversary of Founding of the New China", a model figure of addressing "Three Rural Issues" (agriculture, rural areas and farmers) at the 60th anniversary of the New China by the Ministry of Agriculture and many other honors.