Action to revitalize the seed industry has achieved initial results

20 December 2023, China: News from this website Since the implementation of the seed industry revitalization action in 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has worked with relevant departments in various places to thoroughly implement the deployment requirements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. “Achieve major breakthroughs” overall arrangement, comprehensively promote the implementation of five actions: protection and utilization of germplasm resources, innovative research, enterprise support, base improvement, and market purification, and achieve a number of landmark results and phased progress. 

The census and protection of agricultural germplasm resources have been continuously strengthened. The three-year nationwide census of agricultural germplasm resources is about to come to an end. 139,000 crop resources, 270,000 livestock and poultry resources, and 120,000 aquatic resources have been newly collected. 34 newly discovered livestock and poultry species resources, including the Pamir yak, have been rescued. Protect a number of endangered rare resources such as Zhangmu cattle, and initially understand the resource status. A new national crop and marine fishery germplasm resource bank has been put into operation, and the livestock and poultry germplasm resource bank has been accelerated to meet the strategic conservation needs of resources in the next fifty years. There are 318 national-level germplasm resource banks (nurseries and farms), and 159 national-level protected species of livestock and poultry have been fully protected in vivo. 

Breakthroughs have been made in some key technologies and major varieties. Major projects on key core technologies for provenance and biological breeding were launched and implemented, and the national joint breeding research and livestock and poultry genetic improvement plans were solidly advanced. The two independently developed gene editing “scissors” are accelerating their industrial application, and special breeding chips for pigs, dairy cows, etc. have the ability to be replaced by domestic products. A number of saline-alkali tolerant wheat varieties and short-growing winter rapeseed varieties have been initially bred, and the first batch of 51 genetically modified corn and soybean varieties have been approved. The market share of domestically produced white-feathered broiler chicken varieties exceeds 20%, and it has gone abroad for the first time and was exported to Tanzania. The independently developed beef cattle varieties Huaxi cattle and new white shrimp varieties of Vannamei are being accelerated. 

Accelerate the cultivation of the backbone of seed industry revitalization enterprises. A national seed industry enterprise lineup has been initially established consisting of 69 leading enterprises in crops, 86 livestock and poultry, and 121 aquatic products. Promote the docking of formation enterprises with scientific research institutions, financial institutions, and seed industry bases, support the leadership in key core technology research and joint breeding research, give priority to being included in the pilot scope of major variety promotion subsidy policies, and strive to create aircraft carrier-type leading enterprises, “hidden champion” enterprises and Professional platform enterprise. CITIC Longping integrated domestic and foreign businesses to realize the global layout of the seed industry. SDIC Group invested 4 billion yuan to establish SDIC Seed Industry to lay out the biological breeding industry. 14 provinces including Sichuan and Henan have successively established seed industry groups. The pace of investment, mergers, acquisitions and restructuring of seed industry companies accelerate. 

The ability to ensure seed source supply continues to improve. Optimize the layout of national-level seed industry bases, implement projects to reward major seed production counties and modern seed industry improvement projects, and improve the “national quality seed breeding system” consisting of 216 crop seed production base counties, 300 breeding livestock and poultry farms, and 91 original aquatic breeding farms. Team” has achieved basic coverage of grains, cotton, oil, sugar, pigs, cattle, sheep, poultry, fish, shrimps, crabs and shellfish, and the seed supply guarantee rate has increased from 70% to more than 75%. Strengthen the base’s scientific and technological equipment support, promote the transformation and upgrading of improved seed production, processing and drying facilities, accelerate the application of four-bed system, production performance measurement and disease purification technology, establish and implement a seed quality certification system, and significantly improve the quality of seed sources. Improve the national and provincial disaster relief and famine preparedness seed reserve systems, and achieve full coverage of provincial seed reserves.  

The protection of intellectual property rights in the seed industry has been significantly strengthened. We will implement the newly revised Seed Law, accelerate the establishment of a substantively derived variety system, promote the issuance of judicial interpretations on infringement cases and guidance on species-related criminal trials, strengthen the administrative and judicial connection mechanism, and further improve the new plant variety protection system. Jointly with the public security organs, law enforcement agencies and other relevant parties, we have launched a “combination punch” to severely crack down on counterfeiting, counterfeiting, infringement and other illegal activities, and carried out the annual activities of seed industry supervision and law enforcement and special rectification of intellectual property protection, clean-up of “imitation seeds” and variety approval tests, and released typical cases. , the awareness of anti-counterfeiting and rights protection in the seed industry has been significantly enhanced, and the atmosphere of incentive, protection and innovation continues to improve. 

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