Source: Xinhua News Agency
Harbin, 22 Apr (Xinhua) -- On 22 April, the Economic Information Daily published an article entitled "The Pain of the Seed Industry Behind the Sky-high Price of "Foreign Seeds.") The article said that in recent years, the research and development capabilities of domestic seeds have gradually increased, and the market share has also increased steadily, but there are still some crops that rely on "foreign seeds", and there are still many shortcomings and weaknesses in some varieties, links and fields. For example, the protection and utilization of resources are not enough, there is a gap between breeding innovation in some fields, especially the basic original innovation, and the international advanced level, and the competitiveness of corn and individual vegetable varieties is not strong. Experts said that "foreign seeds" are subject to people, and they must improve their breeding technology and strength as soon as possible by breaking through key technologies, innovating institutional mechanisms and deepening market reforms.
Zhao Naiyu painted
The enhancement of seed innovation ability still depends partially on "foreign seeds"
Cui Ming, a farmer in Qinjia Village, Qinjia Town, Beilin District, Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, has planted land for more than 30 years, and in 2020 he planted more than 100 mu of rice, the variety is "Sui Japonica 18", and the yield per mu has reached 1200 jin. More than 10 years ago, his area lacked the main rice varieties, and the only rice varieties were of good quality, but they were prone to lodging and low yields.
In order to solve this problem, Nie Shoujun, director of the Rice Quality Breeding Institute of heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, led the team to attack the black soil, sowing, managing, observing, recording, selecting, harvesting, and then comparing and testing the harvested rice to screen out the ideal variety materials... After years of hard work, Nie Shoujun led the team to select and breed a series of high-quality, multi-resistant, aromatic rice varieties. Among them, "Sui Japonica 18" has become the main cultivar of the second and third accumulation temperate zones in Heilongjiang Province. In recent years, this variety has been promoted in Heilongjiang Province for an annual area of more than 10 million mu.
On the occasion of the autumn harvest last year, in the Heilongjiang Heping Ranch Science and Technology Demonstration Park, the new soybean variety "Henong 71", which was selected and bred by the Jiamusi Branch of the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was measured in the field, with a harvest area of 5.2 mu and an average yield of 336.2 kg per mu, which refreshed the record of soybean yield in northeast China.
The northeast region is the main soybean producing area in China, and the low yield of soybeans has always been an important factor restricting the revitalization of China's soybean industry. Huang Chunfeng, a researcher at the Heilongjiang Seed Industry Technical Service Center, said that the yield test broke the record of soybean yield in the northeast region, indicating that there is still room for improvement in soybean production in northeast China, and the transformation of advantageous varieties should be accelerated and the leading role of excellent varieties should be given full play.
Data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs show that China's rice and wheat two major ration crop varieties are 100% self-sufficient, and soybean seeds are guaranteed based on the domestic situation. Experts said that the breeding level of rice and wheat in China is not much different from that of developed countries, and a relatively sound breeding and promotion system of fine seeds has been formed.
Unlike rice and wheat, some maize varieties in China rely on "foreign seeds". Experts said that there is an innate shortage in China's corn germplasm resources, and foreign countries can get stuck in our necks in terms of germplasm resources or breeding technologies at the source of breeding varieties. The hybrid corn seed "Xianyu 335" selected and bred by the American Pioneer Company has been promoted for more than ten years, and it is an important corn variety in some parts of China, and the promotion area is relatively large. An enterprise in Heilongjiang introduced early maturing corn varieties from Germany, which have the characteristics of early maturation, rapid dehydration and lodging resistance, and have been widely promoted in the north of Heilongjiang.
Although in recent years, China's vegetable "foreign seed" dependence has been greatly improved, there are still some high-end vegetables rely on "foreign seeds". "Domestic vegetable seeds are sold according to the jin on the bag, and 'foreign seeds' are sold according to the grain" was once an embarrassment faced by China's vegetable industry. To change that, three years ago, ChemChina completed the acquisition of Syngenta in Switzerland for $43 billion. At the same time, China has also increased its independent innovation efforts, in the national "vegetable basket" Shouguang City, the market share of domestic vegetable varieties has increased from 40% 10 years ago to more than 80% today.
According to Li Zhansheng, associate researcher of the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and expert of the "13th Five-Year Plan" national bulk vegetable industry technology system, in 2018, Zhejiang led the establishment of a major scientific research team for national broccoli varieties, integrating domestic and foreign breeding resources and technical advantages to accelerate the pace of variety innovation and cultivate high-quality varieties with independent intellectual property rights. At present, the domestic market share of self-bred broccoli varieties in China has increased from less than 5% in 2017 to 15% to 20%.
According to the China Seed Trade Association, China's vegetable seed imports in 2019 were 224 million US dollars, accounting for more than half of the seed imports. In some regions, some varieties, especially vegetable "foreign seeds" account for more than 80%, and even almost completely rely on imports. Zhang Hui, a researcher at the Horticultural Branch of the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, gave an example, such as broccoli, onions, radish, spinach, etc., and the proportion of "foreign seeds" is still high. According to experts, the external dependence of beet and ryegrass seeds has reached more than 95%.
Li Zhansheng said that although the autonomy rate of vegetable varieties in China has increased significantly, there are still some varieties with high import dependence, such as some vegetables in high-end facility agriculture, tomatoes cultivated in long seasons, etc., or foreign varieties dominate. Among the imported varieties, the cultivated varieties involving facility agriculture are the most dependent on imports, and the import proportion of some varieties is even more than 90%, such as the external dependence of broccoli reaching 95%, and the import dependence of hybrid carrots, spinach, onions and so on is more than 90%. According to the data, the top 5 vegetable seed imports are tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, spinach and onions.
The price of "foreign seeds" is subject to people
At present, the world's top 20 seed industry groups have formed a new pattern of "two superpowers, four strong and differentiated development". According to a report by Huaan Securities, Bayer and Cody Wah (DuPont Dow's agricultural division) account for 60% of the world's top 20 sales and have most of the core patented technologies. Syngenta, BASF, Limagran and Covosch account for 26% of the world's top 20 companies, while the remaining 14 companies have a smaller market share of only 14%, but these companies have their own seed businesses.
Compared with foreign vegetable seed enterprises, the breeding and research and development of seed enterprises in China is still relatively weak, and the current situation of low concentration and small enterprise scale in the domestic seed industry further restricts the ability of enterprises to invest in science and technology, forming a vicious circle. What are the problems of the neck of China's vegetable seed industry? Zhang Hui said that carrots planted in Heilongjiang and onions, spinach, tomatoes and so on in Heilongjiang are basically imported seeds, and domestic seed research and development in this regard is relatively weak. Experts said that foreign seed research and development is mostly in large companies, and the collection of germplasm resources is the accumulation of a hundred years, starting early and investing in scientific research. However, the scientific research system of China's commercialized crop species industry is not perfect, and basic and public welfare research mainly relies on scientific research institutes, with limited investment and weak foundation. The collection of many vegetable seeds in China is relatively messy, and the accumulation of the most primitive germplasm materials is not pure.
Li Zhan province introduced that the current difficulty, first of all, is the lack of excellent germplasm resources, China's germplasm resources collection, identification and evaluation of late start, the corresponding reserve and identification work is relatively lagging behind. Secondly, although China has led the genome sequencing of most vegetable crops, it is lagging behind in some important agronomic trait genes, such as the mining of genes such as disease resistance and male sterility, and the study of functional mechanisms.
Third, the key breeding technology innovation is insufficient, China has carried out haplo sports species, inbred incompatibility, male sterility, female line and other related research and application, but there is a general gap with foreign countries, forming a certain technical bottleneck.
Fourth, the application of new technologies such as gene editing is not enough, gene editing is a 5G technology in the field of agriculture, China has been widely used in field crop breeding, but in vegetables, it is still only in a small number of crops to carry out research, most of the crops have not been carried out and applied.
Experts said that some varieties rely on "foreign seeds", and their market prices and profits are subject to people, which will affect China's price initiative and market discourse power, which may bring economic losses to large planters, and if there is an extreme supply cut, it will affect the speed, quality and efficiency of agricultural development.
A vegetable planting cooperative in Heilongjiang planted more than 10,000 mu of chili peppers last year, of which 1,700 mu of chili peppers and nearly 1,000 mu of round peppers used Israeli seeds. "Foreign seeds are really good, taking the pepper as an example, the domestic pepper seed can only be picked twice, and the foreign seed can be picked three stubble, and the appearance is good, the market recognition is high, and the sales price is high." The head of the cooperative said that the price of imported seeds is too expensive, and the cost of seeds alone is more than 1500 yuan per mu of land. "Counting down, an imported seed is 2 cents, and when the seeds were sown in the past, the domestic seeds were sprinkled with sand, and the imported seeds were swinged one by one, for fear of wasting."
In recent years, the broccoli industry has developed rapidly in China. However, the supply of broccoli seeds in China has long been monopolized by seed companies in Japan, Europe and other places, and the majority of broccoli growers have fallen into the embarrassing situation of "expensive seeds" and "no seeds". A grower said that like a foreign variety, sesame seed sized seeds are sold for 150 yuan in a package of 10 grams, and they are often not available. The 100,000-grain packaged broccoli imported from Japan is "hardy and excellent", and each bag has risen from 3500 yuan to about 20,000 yuan.
Li Zhansheng said that the rise in front-end costs is only a direct impact, because China's broccoli has the characteristics of "small planting volume" and "high industrial value", the cultivation area is only about 1.5 million mu, but it is equivalent to the output value of more than 10 million mu of other general vegetables, once the supply of seeds of the main planting varieties is not timely, it will delay the sowing period, directly affecting the downstream supply and export trade of China's sales market.
According to Li Zhan, broccoli growers are relatively concentrated, China exports 140,000 tons of broccoli every year, accounting for a relatively high proportion of exports in nearly a thousand kinds of vegetables, becoming an important industry for farmers to increase their income and get rid of poverty. "There are more than 200,000 mu of heat-tolerant broccoli varieties in China, and there is no heat-tolerant substitute species in China, and once there is a supply problem, farmers will suffer losses." Li Zhan said.
Similar to the situation with broccoli, the sugar beet industry, which also relies heavily on imported seeds, has a similar problem. As an important sugar crop, there is still a gap between China's sugar beet breeding and the international advanced level, and the genetic single-grain seeds used for mechanized precision sowing in China's sugar beet industry basically rely on imports. Sugar experts said that one-third of China's sugar consumption depends on imports, the world's sugar supply as a whole is in a tight balance of the background, once foreign sugar beet seed enterprises can not supply seeds on time, sufficient quantity and quality, China's sugar industry long-term stable supply may have problems.
How to fight the seed industry "turnaround"
In terms of animal husbandry sources, affected by foreign varieties, some high-quality livestock breeds in China have disappeared. Liu Di, secretary of the Party Committee of heilongjiang academy of agricultural sciences, began to study the pig from 1999, according to her, the pig was once the dominant breed in the northeast region, but with the rapid growth rate, high lean meat rate of foreign commercial pig breeds in the 1980s rapid influx into China, so that the domestic local pig breeds have been greatly impacted, including the people's pigs, all local pig breeding has dropped sharply, germplasm resources are in danger, in 2016 the former Ministry of Agriculture announced that there are 37 varieties of local pigs in China that are extinct, endangered and endangered.
Seeds are the cornerstone of agriculture, and the modern seed industry is a national strategic and basic industry, known as agricultural "chips". The competition in the seed industry has a bearing on the competitiveness of the entire country and the entire agricultural industry, and is a high-tech war in which the smoke of gunfire cannot be seen. In recent years, the construction of China's modern seed industry system has been accelerated, and the seed industry has developed rapidly. However, with biological breeding technology as the core of the global seed industry scientific and technological innovation is changing with each passing day, the cross-border restructuring of foreign large seed enterprises is intensifying, and the strong and powerful join hands to seize the global market, China's national seed industry is still facing severe challenges.
A recent survey showed that in 375 counties in six provinces, including Hubei, Hunan and Guangxi, 71.8% of the local varieties of food crops disappeared, including many high-quality, disease-resistant, barren and thin characteristic varieties, and the protection of germplasm resources faced new challenges. Industry insiders believe that China has not yet formed a full-chain organizational system for germplasm resource utilization, gene mining, variety research and development, product development, and industrialization application. Relevant experts and responsible persons of enterprises said that to win the battle to turn the seed industry around, we must solve several key problems:
First of all, there is a gap between the original innovation ability of germplasm resources and the international advanced level. The total amount of crop germplasm resources preserved in China has exceeded 520,000, but less than 10% of the resources have been accurately identified, and further efforts are needed to excavate truly useful genes.
The in-depth integration of production, education and research needs to be further implemented. Scientific researchers lack the energy and ability of industrialization promotion, while seed enterprises are generally small and scattered, and the level of scientific research is not high. Li Zhansheng said that Japan's Sakata Company will invest 10% of its revenue in scientific research every year, that is, several hundred million yuan a year. Relevant survey data show that the annual R&D investment of China's top 50 seed enterprises is 1.5 billion yuan, which is only close to 1/7 of the former American multinational agricultural company Monsanto.
Intellectual property protection is of paramount importance, and if this work is not in place, researchers will have worries and are reluctant to cooperate with enterprises; and enterprises are not willing to invest, fearing infringement and counterfeiting. Heilongjiang Province, Wudalianchi Fumin Seed Group Co., Ltd. to produce and sell soybean seeds, the annual sales of soybean seeds about 30,000 tons, the company's general manager Li Wenguo said that in some areas of some seed production and operation enterprises or agricultural cooperatives, the business license they hold includes both crop seeds and commodity grain. Some buy commodity grain at a higher price than the market price, and then sell it as seeds at a lower price than the regular seed price, disrupting market order. Some seed enterprises will slightly change the traits of the promoted good seeds, and promote them as new varieties, resulting in a serious phenomenon of seed homogenization and breeding on the market.
How to fight the "turnaround battle" of the seed industry? The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has decided to grasp the seed industry as a key task in tackling key problems in agricultural science and technology and the modernization of agriculture and rural areas in the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan", maintain the competitive advantage of rice, wheat and other varieties, and narrow the gap between corn, soybeans, pigs, dairy cows and other varieties and the international advanced level. The state's policy of supporting the seed industry has been clarified, which requires more innovative spirit and sense of responsibility of scientific researchers, and more ambitions of entrepreneurs to jointly win the battle of turning the seed industry around.
Relevant experts suggest that the collection and protection of germplasm resources should be increased during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Rescue excavation and protection of endangered high-quality endemic species. Learn the practices of the advanced seed industry, pay attention to the excavation of specific traits and genes, enrich excellent germplasm resources and a strong gene bank, and create a technical and material foundation for the seed industry to leapfrog to quality. Biological engineering technology is a sword in the breeding industry, experts expect that the relevant major biological breeding science and technology projects can be accelerated to start the implementation, on the basis of the existing further introduction of policies, breaking the boundaries of scientific research institutes and enterprises, with the integration of production, education and research and the integration of innovation mechanism to promote industrialization, the establishment and improvement of science and technology enterprises close cooperation, proportional sharing of benefits of commercial breeding science and technology innovation organization system. (End)