No off-season in time, no blind spots in space for seed market regulation
Editor's Note: As law enforcement intensifies and special campaigns are carried out frequently, seed market inspection and rectification have no off-season in terms of time and no gaps in terms of space. In practice, many localities have also explored new models and new approaches based on their own characteristics, such as the joint inspection by the three regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the county-level seed market order evaluation in Jiangsu, and the advance warning followed by swift and severe punishment in Zhangye. This issue's Market Scan presents to you the new elements in this autumn's seed market inspection campaign through the practices of various localities.
Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei: First Joint Inspection Ensures Full Coverage of All Three Regions
Recently, the seed management agencies of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei jointly launched the “Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Seed Breeding Base Joint Inspection Campaign,” conducting a general survey of corn seed breeding bases in Miyun County of Beijing, Ji County of Tianjin and Chengde City of Hebei Province, sampling all corn varieties bred by local major seed production companies, and inspecting wheat seeds and vegetable seeds sold in local seed markets. This is the first time the three regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei have carried out a joint seed law enforcement campaign, jointly regulating the source of seeds.
Fanzipai Village in Miyun County of Beijing and Chengde County of Hebei Province are both important corn seed breeding bases in their respective provinces and municipalities, with decades of seed production history and relatively mature seed production techniques. However, in recent years, the local seed production area has been continuously shrinking. The main reasons are: first, seed production bases have moved westward to Gansu and Xinjiang; second, precision sowing planting methods have become prevalent, reducing the amount of seed used; third, many local farmers believe that seed production is labor-intensive and costs increase year by year, so their willingness to plant continues to decline.
Inspection found that seed production enterprises in Miyun and Chengde strictly produced seeds in accordance with the locations and varieties stipulated in seed production licenses, with no unlicensed production or production of authorized varieties without permission. Isolation zones in seed production fields were reasonably set up, rogueing was timely, male parent rows were thoroughly cut down, and seed production archive records were detailed and complete. Law enforcement personnel picked corn ears in the field according to inspection procedures, respectively as authenticity testing samples, genetically modified component testing samples and backup samples. Sampling covered all 8 corn varieties of the sampled enterprises, representing an area of 10,000 mu.
During the three autumns period, the seeds sold by various dealerships were mainly wheat and vegetables. Ji County of Tianjin is an important distribution center for vegetable and wheat seeds, and its vegetable seeds are sold in relatively large quantities in northern Hebei Province and the suburbs of Beijing, so it was listed as a key area for inspection in this campaign. The inspection team checked 4 to 8 dealerships in each location and found that seed packaging labels in the three regions were relatively standardized and seed business archives were relatively complete, but some dealerships sold bulk seeds. For seeds from the other two regions suspected of problems, especially those suspected of being promoted without approval, unlicensed operation, misappropriation of brands, or counterfeit packaging, local law enforcement personnel investigated and dealt with the dealerships, while law enforcement personnel from the other two regions recorded and gathered evidence, tracing local seed production enterprises.
The authenticity and genetically modified component testing of corn seeds was a key focus of this joint seed base inspection campaign. Sample authenticity testing was jointly completed by the Beijing Seed Quality Supervision and Inspection Station and the Tianjin Seed Quality Supervision and Inspection Station, and genetically modified component testing was completed by the Seed and Genetically Modified Organism Product Component Supervision, Inspection and Testing Center (Beijing) of the Ministry of Agriculture. For illegal acts discovered during the joint inspection campaign, each local seed management agency conducted a thorough investigation and handling based on the clues and evidence obtained, and reported the results to the other two regions.
This Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei joint law enforcement was a beneficial exploration for establishing a information-sharing and long-term cooperative investigation mechanism among the three regions. It also strengthened seed source governance, regulated seed business order in border areas, cracked down on “hidden” illegal acts such as forging seed business license numbers and counterfeit seed packaging, and provided an additional safeguard for farmers' seed use safety.
Jiangsu: 18 Million Yuan to Support County-Level Regulatory Services
Currently, the autumn sowing seed market in various parts of Jiangsu has entered its sprint period. Seed enterprises have basically completed seed outbound warehousing and distribution, market buying and selling are brisk, and agricultural management departments across the province are concentrating their efforts on market regulation. It is reported that in order to ensure seed use safety for this year's autumn sowing, the Jiangsu Provincial Agricultural Commission issued a notice in early September on special inspection of the autumn seed market, requiring all localities across the province to highlight inspection priorities and comprehensively advance autumn seed market supervision and inspection work in accordance with the timeline and progress of the provincial special action implementation plan for combating infringements of variety rights and the production and sale of fake and inferior seeds at the beginning of the year. At present, all localities have generally completed the first round of inspections focusing on licensed seed enterprises, wholesalers and specialized service organizations, and have entered the stage of inspecting market sales outlets, with more than 2,000 seed samples completed cumulatively. For areas at the junctions of multiple provinces, where quality accident disputes occur frequently and where the production and sale of fake and inferior seeds is a serious problem, inspections focused on seeds reported by the public, labeled TM, or without packaging labels, and closely tracked seed enterprises and wholesale and retail outlets with records of illegal acts. Sampled specimens were uniformly sent to qualified seed inspection institutions, and key samples and key varieties were uniformly arranged by the Provincial Crop Seed Inspection Center for indoor molecular testing of variety purity and authenticity as well as field planting identification.
To ensure the effectiveness of regulatory work, Jiangsu has implemented comprehensive performance evaluation of seed market regulation since this year, organizing the “County-Level Seed Market Order Evaluation” work across the province, conducting comprehensive assessment and evaluation of indicators such as variety layout, business order, market regulation, seed quality, case handling, seed accident handling, and regulatory capacity building within counties, and reporting the evaluation results. The provincial finance department allocated 18 million yuan in special funds for this purpose, specifically to support localities in carrying out seed safety regulatory services, improving technical support conditions such as seed testing, and establishing bases for new variety display, safety testing, and variety authenticity testing.
In advancing seed market regulation, various localities have also explored new models and new practices. For example, Taizhou City, aiming at the direction of quality seed demand from large-scale business entities, established the country's first prefecture-level professional social organization serving family farms —— the “Taizhou Family Farm Service Alliance,” providing members with various services such as seed supply, financial credit and insurance, and agricultural technology social services. It also organized large-scale growers to connect with seed supply enterprises, strengthened training on seed use knowledge for production, lowered seed supply prices, and guided standardized seed selection. Rudong County included seed accident disputes among matters accepted by the government's “12345” public service hotline, established a coordinated emergency response and handling mechanism jointly participated in by seed management, agricultural law enforcement and industry and commerce departments, arriving at dispute sites within 48 hours to conduct investigation and evidence collection and quickly handle illegal acts involved. Since the establishment of the emergency mechanism, the county's seed department has taken the lead in properly handling more than 100 seed disputes, involving seeds worth more than 1.2 million yuan, effectively safeguarding seed use safety for agricultural production.
Zhangye: Investigation and Evidence Collection at the Scene at the First Moment
Recently, the office of the leading group for the management and coordination of the national-level seed base (Zhangye) and the Zhangye City Agriculture Bureau of Gansu Province simultaneously issued documents, putting forward strict requirements on severely cracking down in accordance with the law on illegal acts of rushed purchasing and speculative purchasing of corn seeds and on strengthening base supervision. The base management and coordination leading group required governments in Ganzhou, Linze and other places to promptly issue notices on cracking down on illegal acts of rushed purchasing and speculative purchasing of corn seeds, publish reporting hotlines, and organize joint law enforcement by agriculture, public security and industry and commerce departments to create a high-pressure posture. All corn seed production townships must fulfill contracts and deliver seeds, with key supervision over those who privately kept and resold seeds in previous years, and at the same time establish seed protection teams, adopting methods such as duty shifts and patrols to curb the occurrence of illegal acts. The base management and coordination leading group also required local agriculture and public security departments to rush to the scene at the first moment, investigate and gather evidence, and severely crack down in accordance with the law on those who disrupt law enforcement or gather crowds to cause disturbances.
The Zhangye City Agriculture Bureau reported on the law enforcement and supervision of production order at the Zhangye seed base. In order to make the “Measures for the Management of the Zhangye National-Level Hybrid Corn Seed Production Base (Trial)” widely known and implemented, each district and county formulated corresponding implementation rules, gave advance notice of risks to village committees and enterprises with illegal acts, with seed management department heads responsible for townships, township leaders responsible for villages, village cadres responsible for communities and plots, township governments making commitments to county governments, village committees making commitments to township governments, and communities (wells) making commitments to village committees. In addition to the first warning, second contracting, and third commitment mechanism, agriculture and public security departments also adhered to the principles of early grasp, early intervention, early supervision and early handling, promptly grasping the planting intentions of land operators, and at the same time distributing the “Corn Seed Production Risk Warning Notice” to every seed production household.
In strictly controlling enterprise access, credit was granted to enterprises that passed enterprise credit rating evaluation and the list of credit-granted enterprises was published, a three-level access system of city, county and township was implemented, and strict checks were made on the production area proposed by enterprises, effectively preventing qualified enterprises from implementing areas beyond scale and eliminating illegal establishment of corn seed production bases by unqualified enterprises and individuals.
This year, the Ministry of Agriculture found a total of 27 seed-related cases during inspections of the Zhangye seed base. As of now, the 27 cases involved an area of 5,453.31 mu and 2,026,480 kg of seeds (ears), and were consolidated into 26 cases. Supervision destroyed banned seed fields in 4 cases, administrative penalties concluded 4 cases, and 18 cases are under investigation. Illegal seed production fields were silaged on 117 mu, involving 10 cases. Seeds diverted to commercial use totaled 72,600 kg (ears), involving 4 cases. Seeds pending confiscation totaled 651,400 kg (ears), involving 3 cases. Seeds preserved and dried by the parties totaled 1,236,000 kg (ears), involving 4 cases. Seeds pending investigation of whereabouts totaled 64,080 kg (ears), involving 2 cases.