Longping High-Tech's Rice Seed Halted by the Ministry of Agriculture

After nearly a year, the hybrid rice variety “Liangyou 0293,” which suffered large-scale yield reductions in multiple areas of Anhui, has received its “verdict.”

On September 2, the Ministry of Agriculture issued a notice requiring 41 crop varieties to cease production immediately and stop promotion after one year, and “Liangyou 0293” was among them.

On the morning of the 2nd, a staff member from the Variety Management Division of the Seed Management Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture told reporters that the variety was deemed to have major defects, so the Ministry of Agriculture required that its promotion be stopped.

Zou Kui, head of the Variety Management Division of the Seed Management Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture, told reporters that the reasons the 41 varieties were required to stop promotion had already been noted in the notice, and that publishing such a catalog is a routine action of the Ministry of Agriculture, carried out every year.

Ten years ago, “Liangyou 0293” passed the Ministry of Agriculture's review and became a “nationally approved rice” variety, and was long labeled a “super rice” by seed production companies. Why are the original certifications now being overturned one by one?

Ten Thousand Mu of “Liangyou 0293” in Bengbu Suffer Yield Reduction or Total Crop Failure

Zou Kui introduced that the basis for drafting the aforementioned catalog comes from the Measures for the Examination and Approval of Major Crop Varieties (hereinafter referred to as the Measures). The only provision in the Measures concerning “cessation of variety promotion” is: “For varieties that have passed examination and approval, if insurmountable shortcomings are discovered during use, the original professional committee or examination group shall propose a recommendation to stop promotion.”

What is the “insurmountable shortcoming” of “Liangyou 0293”? The notice on September 2 did not disclose it. But the controversy triggered by “Liangyou 0293” in 2014 may shed some light. It was previously reported that in the autumn of 2014, “Liangyou 0293” rice suffered large-scale yield reductions or total crop failure in multiple areas of Anhui.

An investigation report submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture by the Anhui Provincial Seed Management Station showed that in Bengbu alone, the area of yield reduction or total crop failure for this variety was about 10,000 mu. The Anhui Provincial Agricultural Commission responded that the yield reduction or total crop failure was caused by cold, overcast weather and rice blast infection. Affected farmers questioned that the seed production company “Yuan Longping Agricultural High-Tech Co., Ltd.” (hereinafter referred to as “Longping High-Tech”) was suspected of false advertising and concealing variety defects.

In 2006, Ministry of Agriculture Notice No. 844 showed that “Liangyou 0293” met the national rice variety examination and approval standards and passed examination and approval. This variety has high yield, but is highly susceptible to rice blast, and its grain quality is average. It is suitable for planting as single-season mid-season rice in the rice regions of the Yangtze River basin in Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu (excluding the Wuling Mountain area) as well as in areas of southern Henan with light occurrence of rice blast.

In its response after the incident, Longping High-Tech stated that the company had no legal liability for compensation, but had been discussing possible relief plans as much as possible with representatives of affected farmers, distributors, and agricultural management departments.

In early 2015, some affected farmers in the Bengbu area of Anhui received compensation of about 200 yuan per mu from insurance companies.

On April 13, 2015, Longping High-Tech published a notice on its official website stating that the quality of the “Liangyou 0293” product sold by the company had always met national standards, but in view of the fact that in 2014 some farmers in the Bengbu area of Anhui suffered varying degrees of economic loss due to extreme weather, the company decided to stop selling “Liangyou 0293.”

On April 14, Vice Minister of Agriculture Zhang Taolin said that each variety has an suitable region. Under normal seasonal conditions, the Liangyou 0293 variety is suitable for the Jianghuai region, including Anhui, but during the variety examination and approval process, one shortcoming of this variety was that its resistance to rice blast was relatively poor. It happened that last year's seasonal conditions were relatively unusual, so its insufficient resistance was exposed.

In addition, “Liangyou 0293” had always been called super rice by its producer and seller —— Longping High-Tech, and its developer —— the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center. But on April 11, 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture responded that “Liangyou 0293” had not participated in the super rice variety certification organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and was not a “super rice” variety.

Ministry of Agriculture: Variety Exit Is an Urgent Requirement for Protecting Farmers' Interests

On January 24, 2008, the Ministry of Agriculture published the first batch of nationally approved crop varieties to stop promotion. The next day, Ma Shuping, then deputy director of the Planting Industry Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said at a press conference that implementing variety exit and allowing some defective varieties to exit the promotion field is an urgent requirement for protecting farmers' interests.

Ma Shuping stated that for varieties that have passed examination and approval, if during use insurmountable shortcomings are discovered or the varietal characteristics seriously degenerate, making them unsuitable for continued use in production, the original professional committee or examination group (through which the Ministry of Agriculture approved the variety) shall propose a recommendation to stop operation and promotion.

Ma Shuping introduced that variety exit is roughly divided into four procedures: the professional committees for each crop under the National Crop Variety Examination and Approval Committee propose recommendations and a preliminary list; a vote determines the preliminary list; the chairman reviews and makes it public; and a notice is issued. During this period there was also room for reversal. When the first batch of nationally approved crop varieties to stop promotion was made public, a seed business unit raised objections. After repeated communication with the Ministry of Agriculture, it was finally decided that three varieties, the corn varieties Xundan 1 and Miandan 1 and the rice variety Ejingnuo 6, would temporarily not exit. A search found that since 2008, the Ministry of Agriculture has issued a batch of nationally approved crop varieties to stop promotion every year.

The exception is that in 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture issued two batches of such catalogs consecutively. From 2015 to now, the Ministry of Agriculture has consecutively issued the “ninth,” “tenth,” and “eleventh” batches of such catalogs. In addition, the eleventh batch of the “Catalog of Nationally Approved Crop Varieties to Stop Promotion” was renamed the “Catalog of Nationally Approved Crop Varieties Withdrawn.”