The development of a commercial breeding system should be oriented toward end-user demand
The development of modern biotechnology and information technology has provided internal impetus for commercial breeding, while the globalization of the seed industry has become a catalyst for commercial breeding in China. To accelerate the development of China's commercial breeding system, enterprises should be the main actors and the market should be the guide. While cultivating a group of breakthrough varieties, we should guide the orderly flow of scientific and technological resources such as breeding talent, breeding technology and breeding materials from research institutions to enterprises, forming an effective mechanism for close cooperation between science and industry, thereby driving seed enterprises to strengthen their commercial breeding capacity and infrastructure.
Meeting diverse demands
The origin of commercial breeding should be from the industry and back to the industry. This is because seed enterprises face growing pressure from changes in agricultural production methods and shifts in the interest landscape across the entire agricultural industry chain, as well as from all elements of nature, environment and people. Seed enterprises are constrained by natural factors such as climate, arable land, pests and diseases, while also having to meet the requirements of field producers as seed users and consumers as end users. Such diverse demand pressures must be addressed through commercial breeding at the variety level. Therefore, the goal of commercial breeding must focus diverse demands onto each crop and each region (sub-region), condensing them into a very specific trait target system.
Therefore, commercial breeding is a system oriented toward industry, the market and demand. It should be guided by the end-user demand of the agricultural industry chain, centered on the trend-setting key issues of field production, balancing yield traits and green traits, with emphasis on tackling green traits, to achieve sustainable industry development.
Layout through reverse derivation from the industry chain
⟦NL> Commercial breeding should start from downstream demand and work backward, that is, laying out in the order of the industry chain from back end to front end: industrial application, screening and testing, variety cultivation, parental creation, and foundational support.
Among these, in the industrial application stage, it should undoubtedly be led by enterprises, market-oriented, with users at the core, and with research and teaching institutions, agricultural technology and machinery service organizations participating to provide full-chain planting and cultivation services. In the screening and testing stage, it should be led by enterprises, supervised by the government, based on regions, with the trait indicator system demanded by the industry as the goal, and with support from research and teaching institutions. In the variety cultivation stage and the parental creation stage, there should be a shift from the current dominance of research and teaching institutions to strengthening applied breeding by enterprises; enterprises should demonstrate market-oriented advantages in grasping industry demand, determining breeding goals, organizing the breeding process, determining input-output ratios, and implementing achievement incentives; between research and teaching institutions and enterprises, in the development of the commercial breeding system, collaborative cooperation and complementary advantages are needed. In the foundational support stage, research and teaching institutions should be the main body; their basic and resource-oriented innovation is of great significance, but key enterprises should also gradually establish their own germplasm resource banks, gene banks, etc., around the needs of building commercial breeding.
Therefore, commercial breeding is a system in which, after market-oriented reform, enterprises continuously extend into the R&D field and market mechanisms increasingly dominate.
Technology integration and innovation
In recent years, biotechnology has developed rapidly, leading to ever-changing innovation in the seed industry, which has entered a new era of molecular breeding. Some international seed companies, based on next-generation high-throughput sequencing and analysis technologies, have developed markers closely linked to important agronomic traits, yield, and quantitative traits such as disease and stress resistance in crops, and have built huge molecular information databases; relying on precision facilities and equipment and long-term basic accumulation, they have formed huge phenotypic databases; on the basis of developing bioinformatics, they have built an effective connection between phenotypic data and molecular data, bridged germplasm gene resource information and massive phenotypic data, and established technical means combining conventional breeding with biological breeding, greatly improving breeding efficiency and enabling breeding work to achieve a fundamental transformation from “experience” to “science.”
From the perspective of global development trends, the integrated innovation system combining biotechnology with conventional breeding has effectively achieved high genetic gain rates, high accuracy, strong predictability and strong sustainability.
Therefore, commercial breeding is a system that integrates biotechnology with conventional breeding, operating on a large scale, with high throughput, specialization and assembly-line processes.
Integrating resources and clarifying the main actors
At present, at the national policy level, several models for resource integration between enterprises and research institutions have been proposed, encouraging the capitalization of scientific and technological achievements, the establishment of joint-stock R&D institutions, capable enterprises acquiring and restructuring research institutions, and breaking down boundaries to establish joint research models of industry-university-research collaboration.
When carrying out the above resource integration, I believe four principles must be adhered to: first, voluntary market-based combination, originating from the source, with genuine and sustainable demand; second, solid foundations, mature conditions, complementary advantages, and natural progression; third, clear responsible entities, with guaranteed independent investment of follow-up resources, and I do not quite favor joint ventures with a large number of enterprises where equity and rights-responsibilities are dispersed; fourth, encouraging model innovation, encouraging diversification, and creating a relaxed environment for industry development.
Therefore, commercial breeding is a system in which the integration of industry, academia and research continues to deepen, and the vitality of technology, knowledge, labor, management and capital bursts forth in competition.
China's depth, global breadth
In China, corn and many vegetable varieties are exogenous crops, not originally from China. Many advanced biotechnologies and information technologies also come from other countries. Therefore, future commercial breeding with enterprises as the main actors must have both the depth of being rooted in China and the breadth of a global vision. It should absorb more global knowledge, technology, resources and talent to serve China's agricultural production. For exogenous crops, especially, we should, in accordance with international rules and market principles, introduce and absorb global resources and technologies to make up for our shortcomings, integrate and innovate for our own use; for locally advantageous crops, we should strengthen original innovation, protect them in accordance with international rules, and go global and lay out globally.
Therefore, commercial breeding is a system that achieves the three combinations of “local vision and global vision, resources and technology, ‘going out’ and ‘bringing in’.”