Seed companies face a new round of supervisory inspections
In order to further strengthen supervision of the seed market, severely crack down on illegal acts such as variety mislabeling and infringement, and promoting unauthorized varieties, effectively protect farmers' interests and the lawful rights and interests of variety rights holders, and ensure the safety of seeds used in agricultural production, the Ministry of Agriculture began implementing the 2015 supervisory inspection action for crop seed enterprises. Last December, the Ministry of Agriculture issued a notice requiring agricultural administrative departments at all levels to carry out supervisory inspections of enterprises engaged in the production and operation of corn, rice (including hybrid rice and conventional rice), and cotton seeds within their jurisdictions. Enterprises found to have problems in market supervision in recent years, those reported by rights-protection enterprises, and those complained about by farmers shall be taken as key supervision targets for full-coverage inspection; all varieties packaged and operated by key supervision enterprises shall be sampled under full coverage; other enterprises shall be randomly inspected and sampled according to actual conditions.
The main contents of this supervisory inspection of enterprises are as follows:
Inspect production and operation qualifications. Check whether production and operation licenses, variety approval and authorization, production and operation files, seed sources and destinations, packaging labels, and relevant production and sales contracts are lawful and compliant.
Test variety authenticity and seed quality. Extract corn, rice, and cotton seed samples, and carry out purity, moisture, germination rate testing and field identification of variety purity. For corn and rice, variety authenticity testing shall also be conducted.
Regarding the testing of sampled seed samples, the Ministry of Agriculture stipulates:
Variety authenticity testing: The variety authenticity testing of seed samples sampled by the Ministry of Agriculture shall be uniformly arranged by the National Crop Seed Quality Supervision, Inspection and Testing Center and undertaken by qualified testing institutions. For variety authenticity testing of provincial-level sampled samples, those with testing capacity may conduct testing themselves, and those without testing capacity may choose other qualified testing institutions for testing. For variety authenticity testing comparison, approved variety standard samples collected by the Ministry of Agriculture shall be used; the testing method shall use the SSR molecular marker method; the testing standards shall use the "Technical Regulations for Identification of Maize Varieties SSR Marker Method" (NY/T1432-2014) and the "Technical Regulations for Identification of Rice Varieties SSR Marker Method" (NY/T1433-2014).
Variety purity identification. The National Crop Seed Quality Inspection Center is responsible for the field planting identification and summary of test results for the variety purity of corn and rice seed samples extracted under the arrangement of the Ministry of Agriculture. Corn and rice seed samples shall be sent respectively to the Shanxi Provincial Agricultural Seed General Station and the Jiangsu Provincial Agricultural Seed South Propagation Center. Purity identification of other samples shall be organized by each province (region, municipality) on its own.
Testing of other indicators. For the moisture, germination rate, and purity indicators of corn and rice seed samples sampled by the Ministry of Agriculture, relevant provincial-level seed quality inspection institutions shall conduct testing on their own. The Ministry of Agriculture Cotton Quality Supervision, Inspection and Testing Center shall undertake cotton seed sampling and related testing work.
Next, the Ministry of Agriculture will dispatch several supervision teams to various provinces and regions to carry out supervisory inspections of key enterprises in relevant provinces. In terms of standardizing sampling procedures, the notice emphasized that in the 2014 special action against fake seeds, some localities had irregular procedures in sampling, manufacturer confirmation, result notification, objection handling, and the collection and preservation of evidence chains, which directly affected the later handling of cases. In this year's enterprise sampling inspections, all sampling and testing units must strictly standardize sampling, testing, and other procedures, properly retain evidence such as evidence collection and delivery, and promptly organize and keep records sample by sample for inspection, ensuring that the evidence chain is complete and traceable. If the sampled enterprise and the nominal manufacturer are not in the same province, inter-provincial communication and cooperation shall be strengthened, and the seed management agency in the province where the manufacturer is located shall actively assist the sampling and testing unit in completing sample confirmation and result notification.
For key supervision enterprises, if they cannot provide seed samples in this action, the sampling unit has the right to require the enterprise to provide a list of all varieties it plans to package and operate and the time of packaging and warehousing, and to issue a written commitment to accept inspection. The sampling and inspection unit shall conduct follow-up inspection and sampling to ensure that all varieties packaged and operated by the enterprise are sampled. The principal persons in charge of relevant testing institutions must carefully review the accuracy of data and information, sign for confirmation, and submit on time. If important situations and problems are discovered during the action, they may be reported promptly to the Seed Management Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture.