Seed producers gain the upper hand in connecting to the market

In the hinterland of Jiangdu, Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, rice waves roll in the fields with the breeze, and the rice ears bow their full heads; in another ten days or so they can be harvested and stored.

Xiaoji Town, a key central town of Jiangsu Province, is also the improved seed breeding base of Jiangsu Jintudi Seed Industry Co., Ltd. Here there is a core seed breeding area of nearly 6000 mu, which can produce 10 million kg of high-quality rice and wheat commercial seed every year. In 2012, Jintudi Company undertook here the "Yangzhou Yangmai and Yangdao Improved Seed Breeding and Processing Base Construction Project".

Xu Maolin, deputy general manager of Jintudi Company, introduced: "The company has developed very fast in recent years. Last May, it entered the ranks of China's top 50 seed enterprises. A few years ago, we were far from being ranked."

Jintudi Seed Industry Company's "soaring straight up" owed much to taking Xiaoji Town as its improved seed breeding base, an important opportunity.

Jintudi Company was initially positioned toward the development direction of "integration of breeding, propagation and promotion". In terms of breeding, it cooperated with the Lixiahe Research Institute and, under the leadership of Academician Cheng Shunhe, continuously developed new varieties, obtaining exclusive rights to breed high-quality rice and wheat varieties such as "Yangmai 16", "Yangmai 18", "Yangmai 19" and "Yangjing 4227".

"Ten years to breed one variety, that is lucky; some breeding experts never manage to breed a single variety in their whole lives. We have exclusive rights to so many high-quality rice and wheat varieties; this is our advantage," said Wang Baohe, deputy general manager of Jintudi Seed Industry Company.

Although Jintudi has a leading advantage in breeding, it has a major drawback: seed propagation and promotion are both "outside". Propagation of varieties was handed to farms, especially in years when seed prices were good; to earn more profit, farms would engage in "false labeling", and would not cherish and protect their own brand interests as the company does. The same was true of the seed sales market, because sellers consider more how much they themselves profit. Yet every year the company had to rely on these "outside helpers" for the production and sale of 60 million kg of seed.

Xu Maolin said: "A few years ago, especially when the company had just started, I felt more like a shell company. Variety propagation had to be entrusted to farms, and sales depended on agents, 'both ends outside'; we could not control the initiative ourselves."

This had always been a major problem troubling the company's development. Previously they wanted to do something about it but lacked the means; not only was the capital investment large, but land, factories and other matters also required coordination among many parties. This situation finally took a turn for the better at the end of 2011.

In talks with the Xiaoji Town government, Jintudi Company learned of their intention regarding land transfer, and Xiaoji Town borders the Yangtze River to the south, with the Jianghai Expressway, Ningtong Expressway and the high-grade riverside highway, relies on the Ningjingyan Expressway to the east, connects to the Yanxu Expressway to the north, and is close to the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway to the west; cheap water and railway transport can provide convenience for the storage, processing and sale of high-quality rice and wheat seed. At the same time, it applied for special support for comprehensive agricultural development and obtained 10 million yuan in subsidies at the national, provincial and municipal levels, plus 3 million yuan in self-raised funds, and began construction of the improved seed breeding and processing base.

Since the project was implemented, civil works including a normal-temperature seed warehouse, processing plant, laboratory and drying yard totaling 7202 sq m have been completed successively; 6000 mu of land leveling for the improved seed breeding base, 4 km of irrigation and drainage canal systems, and 0.7 km of field roads have been completed; and 14 seed drying units, 11 conveying units, 8 measuring and packaging units and 43 laboratory units have been purchased and installed. Watching the base being built brick by brick and the machinery and equipment installed one by one, Bai Hesheng, director of the company's seed propagation base, grew more energetic day by day.

Not only were the people of Jintudi happy; the large growers of Xiaoji Town were also delighted. Xu Yongping transferred 310 mu of land to propagate rice and wheat varieties. This summer, wheat was one mao per jin higher than the market price. Estimating a yield of 800 jin per mu, in one season he could earn nearly 25,000 yuan more.

"We and these growers are as close as lips and teeth. Thanks to them, the company has such a large-scale improved seed breeding and processing base," said Xu Maolin. "Now the company can produce 10 million kg of seed every year, which not only reduces costs and ensures the quantity and quality of original seed purification of new varieties and improved seed propagation, but also gives us more say in the seed production market. The people of Jintudi stand taller now."