Ministry of Agriculture Reclamation Bureau: Use 5 years to raise the seed industry's market share
“Our main daily work is cutting vegetable seedlings and caring for flower and vegetable seedlings; on average we can earn 60 yuan a day.” Inside the Ruyi Agricultural Ecological Park in Dongxihu District, Wuhan, Hubei, a worker carrying enoki mushroom culture dishes told the reporter.
“This is an agricultural ecological park built by Hubei agricultural reclamation in recent years; it mainly focuses on vegetable breeding and also has a tourism and sightseeing function, with some greenhouses available for visitors to pick in.” said Hu Chao, deputy director of the Hubei Agricultural Reclamation Affairs Administration, explaining that reclamation areas have many advantages for developing the seed industry, such as concentrated land, easy transfer, and easy promotion of advanced technology.
Hu Chao said that Hubei agricultural reclamation took the seed industry as its breakthrough point and joined with 9 state-owned farms that have advantages in seed industry development and core technology to build a modern seed company integrating breeding, propagation, and promotion with production, processing, and sales——Hubei Agricultural Reclamation Lianfeng Seed Technology Development Co., Ltd. At present, the company already has 70,000 mu of seed production bases, and 100,000 mu of seed production bases are under construction.
“Grain secures the world, seeds cast the cornerstone.” As an important means of grain production, seeds are the top priority in safeguarding food security. In recent years, with the rapid advancement of our country's agricultural modernization and the gradual opening of the agricultural market, many well-known multinational seed companies have rushed to seize the market, bringing no small impact to the domestic seed industry.
As the “national team” of our country's agriculture, agricultural reclamation, while proposing to build an international major grain merchant, will continue to solidify the seed industry as a foundational industry and accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the seed industry.
The reporter learned from Heilongjiang agricultural reclamation that Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Company invested tens of millions of yuan to purchase modern corn seed detasseling, harvesting and other equipment, and invested 150 million yuan to build a processing center with an annual capacity of 30,000 tons of corn seed in the Binxi Seed Industrial Park, realizing full mechanization and automation in corn seed production and processing.
⟦NL> “Only by firmly grasping control of the seed industry can we firmly control the initiative in agricultural development and firmly hold the rice bowl of 1.3 billion people in our own hands.” said Wang Shoucong, director of the Ministry of Agriculture Reclamation Bureau.
Last August, the China Agricultural Reclamation Seed Industry Alliance was established at Jiansanjiang Farm in the Heilongjiang reclamation area. The establishment of the China Agricultural Reclamation Seed Industry Alliance is an important measure in the agricultural reclamation system's action to build an international major grain merchant. The Ministry of Agriculture Reclamation Bureau proposed using about 5 years to build a national seed industry aircraft carrier with a market value of 30 billion yuan, sales revenue of 5 billion yuan, and profit of 1 billion yuan; to build several regional leading seed enterprises with sales revenue exceeding 1 billion yuan and profit of 200 million yuan; and to strive for the agricultural reclamation grain crop seed production capacity, processing capacity, sales capacity, and market share to reach 50% of the national total.
In recent years, each agricultural reclamation area has increased efforts to develop the seed industry and achieved remarkable results. The "China Agricultural Reclamation Seed Industry Development Report" released a few days ago shows that as of 2014, China's agricultural reclamation seed industry had nearly 3 million mu of seed production bases and a crop promotion area of 14,089.32 million mu. In 2014, the agricultural reclamation seed industry produced a total of 1.180 billion kg of seed and sold 989 million kg of seed, with sales reaching 6.066 billion yuan, covering sales areas in 25 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions nationwide, including Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Gansu, Guangdong, and Xinjiang.
At present, agricultural reclamation seed already accounts for nearly one third of the total commercial grain crop seed in our country and has formed certain advantages in industrial scale and market share, but the agricultural reclamation seed industry also suffers from problems such as regional segmentation, fighting separately, and being small, scattered, and weak. Compared with international seed industry giants, there is still a large gap.
“To truly compete on the same stage with international seed industry giants, we need a development strategic plan with high recognition, broad relevance, and strong operability as guidance, to guide everyone to divide work reasonably, each display their strengths, gradually realize the optimal allocation of seed industry resources, and transform the comparative advantages of each agricultural reclamation seed enterprise into the competitive advantages of the agricultural reclamation seed industry.” said Liu Xianhui, general manager of Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. At present, the Agricultural Reclamation Seed Industry Alliance is drafting the "National Agricultural Reclamation Seed Industry Development Strategic Plan (2016-2020)", which is expected to be issued by the end of this year, when it will clarify the direction of the transformation and development of the national agricultural reclamation seed industry.
He Ziyang, inspector of the Ministry of Agriculture Reclamation Bureau, said that competition in the modern seed industry is competition in scientific and technological and capital strength. At present, breeding has fully entered the era of molecular breeding. Multinational companies are adopting technologies such as genetic modification, SPT, doubled haploids, and SNP detection on a large scale. Breeding shows characteristics such as high throughput, large scale, and precision and quantification, and is changing the face of the seed industry. The concentrated and rapid application of new technologies requires enterprises to become the main body of scientific and technological innovation, to establish commercialized and factory-style industrial scientific research organization forms suited to the rapid development of breeding technology, and to cultivate world-class basic breeding strength. “At present, agricultural reclamation seed enterprises lack scientific, technological, and financial talent, and the corporate governance structure still needs to be improved. To achieve rapid development, the agricultural reclamation seed industry must aim at first-class international seed enterprises in setting development goals and continuously enhance its competitive strength.” He Ziyang said.