【Article/Observer Network Columnist Wan San】
Recently, Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries released estimates that the well-known high-grade grape variety "Shine-Muscat" seedlings flowed into China, resulting in more than 10 billion yen in annual losses.
Sunshine Rose Grape is a grape variety cultivated by Japan's National Agriculture and Food Research Organization for more than 30 years, named for its fruit that reaches 20 degrees of sugar when ripe and has a light and elegant rose fragrance. A string of gift-grade sunshine roses can be priced at 10,000 yen (about 600 yuan), and once it was also an Internet celebrity product after entering the Chinese market, and the price per kilogram around 2016 often started in three figures.
However, with the continuous expansion of the planting area of sunshine rose grapes in China in recent years, the price has been declining, and now the price on major e-commerce platforms is about 20 to 50 yuan / catty. The larger the individual, the more expensive the ones with better appearance.
Huaibei, Anhui: "Sunshine Rose" planting helps villagers get rich. Image source: Visual China
But it is South Korean growers who have a long-standing grudge over the outflow of high-quality seedlings from Japan and, in fact, have a greater conflict of interest for Japan's agricultural exports. The seedling entanglement between them dates back to the 1990s and involves multiple varieties of fruit.
Japanese strawberry varieties flow to Korea
Since the 1990s, Japan has been cultivating Japanese strawberries, including three varieties, including "red pearls" from Ehime Prefecture, "Zhanghime" from Shizuoka Prefecture, and "Tochiotomi" from Tochigi Prefecture. At that time, Japanese individual enterprises and local government groups allowed some Korean cultivators to "cultivate individually.".
As a result, Korean breeders have crossed Zhangji and red pearls to breed a new variety of "Snow Fragrance", which has been promoted to the whole country as a "domestic variety" since 2005, squeezing out 10% of the japanese strawberry planting area every year. Just three years later, it surpassed Japan's "red pearl" to become the most widely cultivated variety in Japan, and by 2013, it accounted for 75.6% of the country's strawberry cultivation area. As of 2020, 96% of strawberry varieties grown in South Korea are domestic varieties.
Photo: Researchers from South Korea's Chungcheongnam Agricultural Technology Institute demonstrate the domestically produced strawberry "Snow Fragrance" developed in 2005
In 2001, the variety "Maehyang", which was obtained by the hybridization of Tochio and Zhang Ji, became the main variety for export due to the increase in fruit sugar, hardness and coloring ratio during low temperature storage. The subsequent breeding of "Arihyang (hybrid combination is otome× snow incense)", "Christmas red (Ssanta, hybrid combination is plum × snow incense)", gold wire (Kuemsil) and other varieties are also rushing to the exit.
According to the statistics of the Agricultural Food Export Information (KATI) of the Korea Agricultural and Fisheries Food Circulation Corporation, the export volume of strawberries in Korea has increased year by year. According to the statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the total planting area of Strawberries in South Korea in 2019 was 6212 square hectares, and the total output was 193,000 tons, and the scale of South Korean strawberry industry ranked third in Asia and 7th in the world.
In 2020, South Korea's strawberry exports totaled $53.79 million, nearly doubling from 2015 ($33.03 million). In addition to chili peppers, strawberries are the only agricultural product in South Korea with an output value of more than one trillion won.
Image source: korea.net
In this regard, the relevant industry personnel in Japan finally rushed to ask for genetic testing of Korean strawberry varieties, turned away Korean researchers, and were not allowed to enter the cultivation room, etc., but it was too late. According to an assessment by Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, South Korea's infringements in the strawberry export market caused about 22 billion yen (about 1.3 billion yuan) in damage to Japan from 2012 to 2017.
And the Korean media played "drive away the 'Korean strawberries' made in Japan", "aim at the 'strawberry Hallyu'", "Strawberry Japan-Korea War: Zhang Ji Red Pearl VS Mei Xiang Xuexiang, do you know the Strawberry Field 10 Years' War? Such nationalist headlines have caused dissatisfaction among the Japanese people.
However, Japan is also responsible for creating this situation. A former LDP agriculture minister once said: "During my tenure as minister, I said to the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture to 'sell strawberries to Singapore', they said 'not fresh', but when I actually went to Singapore, I found that there were strawberries from South Korea. I asked the staff in charge what was going on, and they said 'it will rot soon, it's very low value for money', which is very negative. ”
Japanese growers are more naïve, and Japan's fruit development and breeding system is largely autonomous, considering only how to protect the interests of growers at home. Coupled with Japan's restrictions on importing agricultural products, growers are well fed in the domestic market and fruit exports are troublesome, so the willingness to register the right to go overseas is relatively weak. When foreign growers came to exchanges and said, "We also want to promote delicious fruits to our country," Japanese companies repeatedly handed over seedlings, unaware that they were potential competitors.
In contrast, in South Korea, in order to solve the problems of softening and mold in the process of strawberry export, agricultural technology in various regions, including the Rural Revitalization Agency, has made great efforts in the research and development of packaging technology. MA packaging technology maintains an oxygen concentration of 2% to 6% and a carbon dioxide concentration of 15% to 20% inside the package, and prepares packaging materials by using a polyamide (PA) film with high water permeability and a low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) film with good elasticity, which has the effect of delaying the color change of strawberries and reducing the sugar level, softening and inhibiting mold.
Employees are "tone-tuning" the export of strawberries, Photo: Korea Rural Promotion Agency
In addition, South Korea has also established a strawberry export comprehensive organization and issued a manual of "Strawberry Export Guide" to guide farmers to carry out strawberry standardization and safe production. In order to encourage the export of strawberries, certain subsidies are given to air logistics fees, and patent fees are charged to growers of Korean varieties such as "plum fragrance", "snow fragrance" and "Christmas" in Vietnam, Myanmar, Europe, New Zealand, the United States and other countries.
Although China's strawberry cultivation history is relatively short, the scale of cultivation has been expanding, and in 2018 it has already made a fortune – accounting for a third of the world's planting area. From 1953 to 2018, a total of 112 strawberry varieties were cultivated in China, and the analysis of the original parent combinations of 92 traceable parental strawberry varieties found that the genetic contribution value of the introduced varieties was as high as 95.7%, mainly Japanese strawberries and American strawberries.
A total of 19 varieties were bred using the Japanese red face (紅ほっぺ) introduced in 1999 as the parent. According to a survey by the Japan Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries and Food Industry Technology Promotion Association, the cultivation area of the "red face" variety itself in 2019 also reached 44,000 hectares, which is 8.4 times that of Japan.
The famous Dandong 99 strawberry is often considered to be a red-faced strawberry with a different name, but this is not the case. In 1999, the Liaoning Provincial Forest Management Research Institute found a mutant plant from another Japanese strawberry variety, Tochi Otome, because of its large sweet taste, after a series of expansion, variety comparison tests, trial planting, in 2004-2005 in the main strawberry cultivation areas in Liaoning Province for large-scale promotion, very popular.
Sunshine rose grape varieties flow out
The sunshine rose grape variety flowed out of this matter, and Japanese growers made almost exactly the same mistake as it was made a second time. Japan's National Agri-Food Research Organization registered the "Shine Muscat" variety of sunshine rose grapes in 2006. If a grower in Japan produces and sells it without a license, a fine of up to 300 million yen can be incurred.
Once again, sunshine rose grape breeders have not registered varieties overseas, and according to the International Treaty for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), overseas variety registration should be completed within 6 years of registration in Japan. By the time South Korea began exporting sunshine rose grapes on a large scale, Japan's National Agri-Food Research Organization, which had spent 30 years cultivating seedlings, had already missed the deadline for overseas registration of varieties, and although it was dissatisfied, there was nothing it could do. South Korean grape exports to China were $5.58 million in 2019, of which sunshine rose grapes accounted for more than 90%.
Photo: Korean sunshine rose grapes in Beijing import supermarkets
In fact, the sunshine rose grape has been introduced into Jinhua, Zhejiang by the relevant enterprises of the Zhejiang Grape Industry Association as early as December 2007, entered Jiangsu around 2010, and then has been planted in Shanghai, Guangdong, Fujian, Yunnan, Sichuan and other places. It is not the illegal inflow into China in 2016 as the Japanese media said.
With the entry of industrial and commercial capital and large planters, the planting area of China's sunshine rose grapes in 2021 has exceeded 67,000 hm2, and high-grade varieties and low-end varieties are constantly differentiated, and sunshine rose grapes are divided into one, two, three, four and other foreign fruits. For example, 60% of the first- and second-grade high-quality fruits in Yunnan Province, a large-scale production area, go to the Greater Bay Area, Shanghai, Beijing and other places, and basically do not flow into vegetable markets, supermarkets and other consumption places. In some e-commerce platforms, generally only three or four grades of fruit can be bought, and the fruit of more than 10 yuan /kg on the market is basically equal to external fruits. The sunshine rose grape market has shown a polarized situation, the supply of high-quality fruits with good taste is in short supply, and the inferior fruit with poor taste will be the norm.
High quality and good price, inferior quality and inferior price is the truth of the market unchanged, sunshine rose grapes in the production area of the planting area optimization, planting technology improvement, brand building and other aspects of the road to go. In this regard, there is a good example of the production area and market demand for planting and selling with different strategies: Ehime oranges.
Ehime orange
Ehime oranges are native to Ehime Prefecture, Japan, and for many years Ehime Prefecture ranked first in Japan in terms of mandarin varieties and yields. Ehime folk joke that the locals turn on the tap, and what flows out is not tap water, but honey orange juice.
The Ehime Orange series is a large family with multiple varieties, distinguished by "Ehime 14", "Ehime 28", "Ehime 38", "Ehime 43" and other numbers.
One of the most famous is Ehime Kokukan No. 28 (Ehime 28 for short), which was later openly solicited from the people of Ehime Prefecture and named "紅まどんな", which Chinese translated as "red circle". Therefore, when Ehime 28 was introduced to Zhejiang Province through non-governmental exchanges at the end of the last century, local growers also called it "Red Beauty".
Compared with the hometown with abundant light, warm sea breeze and appropriate temperature, the climatic conditions in Zhejiang are not very suitable for Ehime oranges, sometimes there is too much rain, and extremely low temperatures may occur in winter. However, with the use of greenhouse facilities and continuous exploration of planting techniques, Ehime 28 used for more than 10 years, and finally achieved commercial planting from 2010. Even so, its packing yield is only about 60%.
Pictured: The "Xiangshan Red Beauty", namely Ehime No. 28, which is included in the national catalog of famous and excellent new agricultural products, source: ningbo.gov.cn
Ehime 28 has a "half-sister": Ehime 38. "Ehime 28" is a hybrid of "Nanka" and "Amakusa", while "Ehime 38" is a cross-breeding of "Nanka" and "Xizixiang". The two sisters have a lot in common: the skin is thin enough to be peeled by hand, the juice is so rich that it can be squeezed with bare hands with a little force, and the taste is close to jelly, so Ehime orange is also called "jelly orange" on the market.
The difference between the two sisters is that Ehime 28 is more extreme in quality and has a higher sugar content (17% to 18%). Therefore, it mainly breaks through in Shanghai, Zhejiang and other places, and is good at conquering the picky taste buds of urban high-end consumers with more high-end quality. In high-end supermarkets, it can sell for about 120 yuan / kg.
The Ehime 38 is more resistant to cold and more productive. It has taken root in Sichuan, Jiangxi, Hunan and Fujian with adaptability, and can tolerate open-field planting without greenhouses and relatively extensive planting management, but still maintain excellent yields, so that the planting cost is lower and the price is relatively close to the people.
Compared with the Korean growers who want to benchmark Japanese exports and set off the "Korean Wave", Chinese growers seem to have less ambitions for the time being. For example, even if citrus is the largest export category of Chinese fruits, accounting for about 15% of all exported fruits every year, the number of exports is still very small compared with the total domestic output. In 2017, China's citrus export volume was 772,000 tons, accounting for only 2.0% of domestic production.
This time, the Japanese side suddenly turned over the old account, but it was not aimed at anyone, but it was likely to be forced by their own KPIs. The Japanese government has set a clear growth target for the export volume of agriculture, forestry and aquatic products: to increase to 2 trillion yen in 2025 and to 5 trillion yen by 2030. In 2020, the export value of agricultural, forestry, aquatic products and food products was 922.3 billion yen, an increase of 1.1% over the previous year, but such achievements do not seem to be enough to achieve the final goal.
As a result, in April 2021, Japan implemented the new Seedling Law, announcing about 1,900 varieties of agricultural products that are prohibited from being brought overseas, including the Sunshine Rose Grape.
China's fruit exports
At present, a considerable proportion of fruit tree varieties cultivated in the mainland come from the introduction, and there is still a gap between the level of free breeding and the international advanced level.
The continent is the world's largest producer and consumer of fruit. According to the data of 2019, the total production of fruit trees, watermelons and melons in the mainland accounts for 22%, 67% and 50% of the world, respectively, with a planting area of 240 million mu, an output of 260 million tons, and an output value of 2.45 trillion yuan, ranking first in the world. At present, the per capita share of fruits in the mainland has exceeded 200 kilograms, and the market demand for fruits will inevitably gradually change from focusing on quantity growth to focusing on quality and taste.
Like watermelon and melon, they are relatively mature breeding categories. This also stems from the preferences of the Chinese people, after all, we have to produce more than 60 million tons of watermelon every year, and some years are even close to 80 million tons, accounting for more than 67% of the world's total watermelon production, and the vast majority of them have entered the Chinese their own stomachs, and the export volume is less than 0.1%.
There are more than 2,000 watermelon varieties registered in China, and there are production areas in the country, and there are mature watermelon varieties that enter the market almost all year round. Large-scale planting of the north has the Jingxin series, the south has 8424, coupled with Hainan, Guangxi and other production areas due to the unique geographical conditions and suitable for planting Longsheng series and other off-season varieties, we have successfully achieved uninterrupted melon eating throughout the year.
Peaches are also fruits with a relatively high share of indigenous varieties. There are more than 200 main cultivars nationwide, of which more than 85% of peach varieties are cultivated by the mainland itself, and among the newly promoted varieties, domestic varieties are almost 100%. Whether it is a traditional round peach or a flat peach, white flesh, yellow flesh and red flesh; Crisp peach or soft peach, everyone can buy what they want. In Yangshan peaches, a single fine peach of more than 1 kilogram will also sell for a high price of 100 yuan.
However, in some specific species, the introduction of varieties still has advantages. According to the analysis of the cultivation area of tree species and the proportion of varieties from different sources, it is found that local varieties in mainland China, domestic breeding varieties and foreign imported varieties account for 30%, 30% and 40% of the cultivated area of fruit trees, respectively. The market share of foreign imported varieties of exotic tree species such as apples, grapes, and cherries is 50% to 90%. In particular, the "Fuji" apple variety originating in Japan is still as high as 80% of the domestic planting area.
The use of indigenous variety resources also needs to be optimized. For example, although kiwifruit is a native species of the mainland, it has widely occupied the global market since the beginning of the 20th century, after the introduction and improvement of New Zealand. The degree of combination between the research and development of kiwifruit varieties and actual production is not close enough, and there are more than 120 varieties or strains that have been independently developed and approved, but the actual main cultivars are less than 20. At the level of yield per mu, the mainland kiwifruit is only 1.1 tons, which is a big gap with New Zealand's 2.3 tons.
In addition, the specific needs of fruit disease resistance, storage resistance, and adaptability of modern planting methods are improved, and our technology is still relatively weak, and the cultivation of characteristic personalized varieties also needs to be further strengthened.
Fruit tree breeding is a long process, and the cultivation time of a new variety in Japan is about 24 years. In the future, we must focus more on breeding, so that we can continue to have better fruits to eat.
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