In July this year, General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over the 20th meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform and proposed that the national seed industry must be carried out and the security of seed sources must be elevated to a strategic height related to national security. In less than half a year, Fujian enterprises broke a big news in the field of seed industry: a few days ago, the new breed of white feather broiler "Shengze 901" independently cultivated by Fujian Shengnong officially passed the approval of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and obtained the review license that can officially sell breed source chickens, and the problem of "card neck" of China's white feather broiler breed source has been completely solved.
The Chinese seed industry that is "stuck in the neck"
"With grain in hand, the heart is not panicked", but what many people do not know is that China, which has thousands of years of history of farming and animal husbandry, is facing a crisis of seed industry security. Seeds are the chips of agriculture and occupy the commanding heights of the entire field of agricultural science and technology. At present, the foreign seed industry has entered the "4.0 era" of breeding of "conventional breeding + biotechnology + informatization", and China is still in the "2.0 era" dominated by hybrid breeding. As the world's second largest country in agricultural germplasm resources, China's top ten domestic seed industry in the global market accounted for less than a foreign enterprise - China is a net seed importer all year round, according to the Data of China Seed Trade Association, China's seed import and export deficit in 2019 is about 224 million US dollars.
Taking white feather chicken as an example, for a long time, more than 97% of the world's white feather chicken breeding sources are monopolized by a small number of European and American companies, domestic companies have no bargaining power at all, the price of breeders has risen from the initial 6 US dollars / only 35 US dollars / only, and the market situation is often affected by the number of supplies and is in a state of rising and falling. At the same time, the introduced original breeders often carry a variety of breeding diseases, which brings great biological safety risks to China.
As the helmsman of Shengnong Company, which ranks first in Asia in terms of broiler production capacity, Fu Guangming deeply feels the pain of lack of "core": "Without the original seed, relying on foreigners, even if the scale is large, it will collapse, and the industry will not see the future." ”
In 2015, at the risk of being cut off from the supply of seeds, Fu Guangming resolutely started the breeding of white feather broilers.
"Saint Zee 901":
Fill in the blank of the breeding source of domestic white-feathered broilers
After several years of secret experiments day and night, a huge investment of one billion yuan, in 2019, Shengnong successfully developed the first white-feathered broiler original breeding line in China: "Shengze 901". Since 2019, Shengnong has achieved import substitution, and all ancestral breeders are self-sufficient and no longer rely on foreign introductions. In September of that year, "Shengze 901" was sent to the Poultry Quality Supervision and Inspection and Testing Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs for performance measurement.
During this period, Shengnong Group used European and American enterprise ancestral breeders and "Shengze 901" to conduct hundreds of batches of comparative tests. The results of comparative tests and performance measurement show that the production speed, survival rate, egg production rate, feed-meat ratio and other main indicators of "Shengze 901" are better than the original species of European and American enterprises, reaching the international advanced level.
In August 2020, the last batch of ancestral breeders in Shengnong were eliminated, and the independently bred varieties were fully replaced by imports, so as to achieve more than enough self-sufficiency for all the ancestral chickens. In the same year, Sunner invested 400 million yuan to build the Group's largest ancestral breeding chicken production base - Zixi White Feather Broiler Ancestral Breeding Farm, which plans to provide cost-effective ancestral breeders for domestic and foreign white feather broiler breeding enterprises. This big move can be seen in Shengnong's absolute confidence in the "Shengze 901" set of systems, and this confidence can indeed stand the test.
"Shengze 901" was selected into the list of supporting lines for new livestock and poultry varieties approved by the National Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources Commission by the Department of Seed Industry Management of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, which means that Shengnong has obtained the national certification and the review license for the formal sale of breeding source chickens, which also means that the seed source restrictions from abroad have been broken, and the white feather broiler breeding enterprises can officially purchase ancestral chickens that are Chinese independently bred.
"Since 2019, Sunner has relied on the excellent quality of 'Shengze 901' to achieve profitability under the severe situation of losses of most enterprises in the whole industry." Fu Guangming said, "The successful breeding of Shengnong has firmly grasped the lifeblood of white feather broiler breeding in the hands of Chinese, and has won the international discourse power for the development of the industry." ”
On December 2nd, in Fujian Guangguang, the "Shengze 901" white feather broiler breeding source review license award ceremony will be held, which will be a grand announcement: Chinese truly realize the "freedom to eat chicken"!
Edit | Weng Xiang
Editor-in-Chief | Wei Bennie
Producer | Fang Shaoyong