Lu Yonggen

Lu Yonggen (Chinese: 卢永根; 2 December 1930 – 12 August 2019) was a Chinese agronomist, plant geneticist, and educator. He served as President of the South China Agricultural University from 1983 to 1995, and was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1993.

Lu was born on 2 December 1930 into a middle-class family in British Hong Kong, with family roots in Huadu, Guangdong province.^[1] When the Japanese attacked Hong Kong in 1941, his father sent him to Huadu for safety, where he became familiar with agriculture. He returned to Hong Kong two years later for middle school.^[1] This experience with Japanese invasion made him sympathetic to the Communist cause, and in 1947 he joined the New Democratic Youth Association of Hong Kong, which was secretly led by the Communist Party of China, and the Party itself in August 1949.^[1]

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Lu moved to Guangzhou to study agriculture at Lingnan University. In 1952, the agriculture schools of Lingnan University and Sun Yat-sen University were merged into the South China Agricultural College (now South China Agricultural University), and Lu became one of the first students of the new college. He formed a close relationship with Ding Ying (丁颖), the first president of the college.^[1]

Lu served as President of the South China Agricultural University from 1983 to 1995, and was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1993.^[2] In 2017, he and his wife, Professor Xu Xuebin (徐雪宾), donated their lifetime savings of 8.8 million yuan to the South China Agricultural University. It was the largest single donation ever received by the university.^[1]

Lu died on 12 August 2019, at the age of 88.^[1][2]