China to Establish a Diversified Indicator System for Variety Approval
In order to solve the prominent problems existing in variety testing and approval work and to adapt to the new requirements of “transforming the mode and adjusting the structure” of agricultural production and the development of the modern seed industry, the Ministry of Agriculture recently issued a notice to publicly solicit opinions on further improving and perfecting variety testing and approval work.
The notice points out that a comprehensive and coordinated variety evaluation indicator system should be established, oriented toward meeting the needs of agricultural production and the market, and a diversified variety approval indicator system should be established more quickly; a nationally unified variety testing database should be established to realize interconnection, sharing and common use of variety testing data between the national level and the provincial level and among provinces; and the system combining variety coding and real-name registration should be improved to effectively prevent human interference.
Variety testing using social resources brought under unified management
The draft opinion expands the testing capacity for crops with relatively large application demand, makes full use of social resources to carry out variety testing, and allows enterprise consortia, enterprise-research institute consortia and research institute consortia with testing capability to carry out variety testing on their own and bring it under unified national or provincial variety testing management. For special-purpose varieties such as sweet, waxy and popcorn varieties of corn and crops such as vegetable soybean, the testing procedures are simplified, and applicants may carry out variety testing on their own and provide testing reports. Efforts should be made to basically meet the testing needs of varieties applying for approval through two to three years of effort.
At the same time, the selection procedure for approved varieties applying to enter testing should be made public, participating varieties should be determined according to the principle of fair competition, and the application situation as well as the names and units of participating varieties should be published. An information platform for variety testing and a data analysis platform should be built, and a traceable, flat testing data collection and processing system should be established. Testing statistical methods should be optimized, variety testing statistical analysis methods should be continuously improved, and the accuracy of testing data should be enhanced.
An open and transparent testing environment should be created to safeguard the rights of variety approval applicants to participate, to be informed and to supervise. Open days for variety testing should be established, and during key crop growth periods, variety testing sites should be designated so that variety applicants can inspect variety performance on site and supervise testing quality.
Increasing social supervision over variety testing and approval
The draft opinion also optimizes the working procedures for variety testing and approval and speeds up the approval process. For varieties that have already passed approval in one province, applicants are allowed to carry out production testing on their own in other provinces in the same ecological type area and directly apply for approval or introduction at the national level or in the relevant province. Varieties applying for approval must complete two years of multi-site testing as required. Preparatory testing carried out by testing management units is cancelled. Regional testing and production testing should be separated in spatial layout; for varieties with outstanding comprehensive traits, regional testing in the second year may be carried out simultaneously with production testing.
The draft opinion requires that a testing data review mechanism be established, abnormal data aggregation be strictly controlled, and testing data be made public in a timely manner. For resistance and diseases subject to a one-vote veto, testing units should retain audio-visual materials such as videos and pictures, and organize approval committee members to conduct on-site inspections during key periods. A reporting system should be established, reporting telephone numbers should be published, and social supervision over variety testing and approval work should be increased.
Supervision over the authenticity of approved varieties should be strengthened, and variety withdrawal should be reinforced. A nationally unified information database of approved varieties, a standard sample library and a DNA fingerprint profile library should be established. Capacity building for variety authenticity testing should be strengthened. With variety authenticity as the core, spot checks in the seed market and supervision spot checks of enterprises should be strengthened, and varieties that are not authentic or are counterfeit or falsely labelled should be promptly cleaned up and withdrawn.
Establishing an exit mechanism for unqualified testing sites
The draft opinion stipulates that agricultural administrative departments should strengthen organizational leadership over variety testing and approval work and clarify post responsibilities at each stage of testing and approval. Testing personnel bear primary responsibility for the data they report, testing undertaking units bear leadership responsibility, and testing management units bear supervisory responsibility for the testing they manage.
Variety testing and approval management institutions should establish a system for variety testing and approval management personnel in which one post is held by multiple persons, one person holds multiple posts, and regular exchanges are conducted, with the longest term in the same post not exceeding 10 years. If a testing site commits fraud in variety testing, its qualification to undertake testing shall be cancelled and it shall be criticized in a circular, and it may not undertake testing again within 3 years. If variety testing and approval committee members and staff commit fraud, engage in favouritism and malpractice, abuse their power, neglect their duties, or solicit or accept bribes, once verified, they shall be given administrative sanctions according to law; if a crime is constituted, criminal responsibility shall be pursued according to law.
In response to acts by variety applicants such as deception, “site-running” and bribery of testing personnel during the testing and approval process, the draft opinion makes clear that the applied variety shall not be approved, and the applicant's qualification to apply for variety approval shall be suspended for 3 years; assessment and evaluation of testing sites should be strengthened, and an exit mechanism for unqualified testing sites should be established.
It is understood that since the implementation of the Seed Law, the national and provincial levels have approved more than 20,000 major crop varieties, making important contributions to the stable development of grain and major agricultural products and the continuous increase of farmers' incomes. In recent years, with the rapid development of modern agriculture and the seed industry, the management system, testing conditions and service capacity of variety testing and approval work can no longer fully meet the needs of the new situation. Some crops face problems such as insufficient testing capacity, incomplete variety evaluation, and some testing that is not fair enough and data distortion, which have affected the scientific nature and authority of approval work.