In the New Year, Agricultural Innovation Calls for the Rise of the Seed Industry

The "Sword of Damocles" in Seed Industry

Foreign vegetable seeds are sold in China in grain size, a grain of tens of dollars, or hundreds of dollars; while China's own seeds are sold in bags, a bag of a few dollars or tens of dollars. This makes Zhang Youjun, the Director of the Institute of Vegetables of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences specializing in the development and promotion of the plant, is stimulating and is also looking for a gap.

The market's weather vane best illustrates the problem. After the farmers have tried unsatisfactory varieties, "You would rather spend a lot of money on buying foreign seeds of a few grains." During the harvest season, foreign tomatoes and colored bell peppers not only look good, but they are also delicious. They can also sell foreign varieties with high prices. Similarly, domestic bananas, apples, red raisins and kiwifruit also sell bananas in Ecuador, Red Fuji in Japan, Redfish in the United States, and Kiwi Fruit in New Zealand. With risks and wealth, exotic, sweet and delicious vegetables and fruits, like a "sword of Damocles", hang on the heads of agricultural scientists.

On February 11, at the second China Boao Agricultural (Seed Industry) Science and Technology Innovation Forum, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Professor of China Agricultural University, Li Ning, who was engaged in the breeding of cloned cattle, talked about the introduction of Beijing ducks from China into the United Kingdom and their optimal breeding. Later became the "cherry valley duck", and from the British "kill back" the Chinese market story. The main breeding stocks in large-scale farms in China are all imported from abroad, and China has also become the world's largest animal-use animal market. In the peak introduced in 2008, a total of 11,000 breeding pigs and 1.94 million breeding chickens were introduced in China, which caused a huge impact on the genetic resources of China's excellent local breeds, and caused more than 40% of local breeder populations to decline in varying degrees. In succession, 44 local breeds were identified as endangered resources, 15 species were endangered and extinct resources, and 17 species were extinct.

The coverage of excellent new varieties exceeds 95%

For more than 60 years, great progress has been made in the theory and technology of seed breeding in China. This is a fact that is obvious to all. In particular, in recent years, under the support of the National 863 Program and Science and Technology Support Program, we have carried out scientific and technological work on major crops, agricultural animals, forestry, and flower and seed industries from the aspects of breeding technology, selection and breeding of new varieties, and conservation and utilization of germplasm resources. The system deployment has greatly increased the investment in seed industry science and technology, and the continuous expansion of breeding technology has drastically advanced the breeding process of new varieties. In particular, it has achieved world-leading or advanced levels in the fields of utilization of heterosis, conventional breeding, and transgenic breeding of some crops; it has established a relatively complete collection and preservation system for animal and plant germplasm resources. For example, China’s total germplasm resources reserves amounted to 410,000, ranking second in the world; the advantages of rice hybrid utilization have been at the leading position in the world, and the annual planting area of ​​world-famous super rice has exceeded 100 million mu; use of cell engineering technology More than 200 new varieties of crops such as wheat, rice and vegetables have been cultivated, and more than 200 million mu have been planted. More than 200 varieties of transgenic insect-resistant cotton have been bred and approved, accumulatively reaching 460 million mu, making the country resistant to insects. Cotton shares 93%. A series of major new varieties were promoted to make new contributions to the "eight-fold increase" of grain, making the coverage of excellent varieties of crops in our country more than 95%, and the contribution of improved varieties to the increase of grain output exceeding 40%, in order to ensure the national food security and the effective supply of major agricultural products. Provide strong support.

But why is our seed industry still far from the international advanced level in terms of achievements?

The gap lies in the lack of scientific and technological innovation in seed industry. Academician Li Jiayang, president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, analyzes that the advanced and advantages of foreign countries are mainly reflected in two aspects: First, the basic research of institutions under the guidance of government policies and the rational division of labor of the biological seed industry invested by enterprises. The second is to seize the intrinsic needs of breeding strategies, driving the accumulation of various elements such as high-tech seed industry, financial capital, and market mechanisms, and the merger and reorganization of enterprises and the globalization of seed industry.

In the 21st century, the giant seed industry, Monsanto, invested heavily in the research and development of bio-breeding technology, seizing the commanding heights of the seed industry and owning many new products such as corn, cotton and soybeans. Another pioneering company in the international seed industry giant has used its advanced scientific research-production-promotion-sales integration development model as an example for the development of the industry.

With a huge market for seed industry, there is a huge space for driving seed industry innovation. It is predicted that in the next 10 years, the global seed market share will be 50-80 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, China's seed industry accounts for 8 billion U.S. dollars, making it the second largest market in the world. Such a large market has brought rare opportunities to China, and the multinational seed group also wants to seize the opportunity. The seed industry development of multinational companies has the typical characteristics of global strategy, innovation leadership, and product output. They integrate the technological advantages of scientific research institutes, universities, and corporate R&D centers and special preferential policies for the country to form a national seed industry science and technology innovation organization system to achieve heterosis. Using biotechnology to lead the frontier of seed industry science and technology innovation, relying on intellectual property protection strategies, local protection and product output.

The gap between China's seed industry and developed countries is mainly due to the lack of scientific and technological innovation in seed industry, the relatively weak R&D capability of seed companies, the lack of high-end talents for breeding resources, the relatively weak infrastructure of improved seed breeding bases, and the low ability to withstand disasters, and the seed market. Regulatory technologies and means are behind. It is precisely because of this that at this forum, participants formed a consensus that only by upgrading the core competitiveness of China's seed industry can the leap-forward development of seed industry be achieved, and new contributions can be made to promote modern agricultural construction and ensure national food security.

Biotechnology Development Brings New Opportunities and Challenges

Li Jiayang believes that China's crop germplasm resources have obvious advantages and provide an important basis for the sustainable development of the biological breeding industry. Among the 410,000 germplasm resources of the national genebank, a group of innovative germplasms and superior genes have been applied in breeding, laying the material foundation for breeding innovation. The reconfiguration of the innovation factors of the global seed industry has brought rare opportunities for the development of the seed industry in China. The accelerating flow of seed industry innovation has already broken through the national borders and must be concentrated in the integration of industry-leading resources to increase the overall investment efficiency in seed industry R&D and industrial investment. The modern biological breeding technology system is an inevitable choice for the development of China's seed industry.

Li Ning believes that the development of autonomous seed industry is the fundamental way for China to break the international monopoly. Only by accelerating the cultivation of China's independent animal species can we break through foreign monopolies in order to ensure the effective supply of aquaculture products in China and the sustainable development of the aquaculture industry.