China's agriculture researcher Shan Lun carried the first torch in Yangling, China's "Green Silicon Valley", in Thursday's Olympic torch relay.
The 76-year-old Shan is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, a renowned scientist in crop physiology and ecology, a doctoral supervisor and specially-invited professor.
"Despite the unsatisfied economic situation at that time, Yangling was one of the places to boast the country's strongest brainpower in the field of agricultural technology and research," said Shan.
"It was home to the Northwestern College of Agriculture and Forestry founded in 1934, which is now known as the Northwest China Science and Technology University of Agriculture and Forestry."
After graduating in July 1951 from the College of Agronomy at SDAU, Shan has long been involved in the research of agriculture on dry land and water conservation pioneering a new field in physiology and ecology of agriculture on non-irrigated farmland.
