Good varieties are the key for seed companies to grow bigger and stronger

The corn seed industry has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent decades, reflected in the continuous expansion of corn planting area. From less than 200 million mu in the early days after Liberation, it hovered at the 200 million mu level for 30 years, broke through 300 million mu in the 1990s, stayed at that level for 15 years, broke through 400 million mu in 2005, broke through 500 million mu starting in 2011, and this year is expected to reach 550 million mu.

The development of planting area has provided good conditions for corn breeding, based on two points: first, the increase in population and the improvement of people's living standards; second, industrial structural adjustment. Corn is a crop with high photosynthetic efficiency and good yield capacity, and its comparative benefit is relatively good. All of these have created favorable conditions for the development of the corn seed industry. At the same time, corn development also faces certain limits. According to the current main distribution of various crops in our country, the threshold for China's corn seed planting area will not exceed 600 million mu. Increasing corn yield per mu can only be left to the seed industry to accomplish, which poses challenges in many aspects, such as how corn can adapt to large-scale mechanized production and how to increase comprehensive stress resistance.

Good enterprises rely on varieties. Without varieties, it is impossible to build a big enterprise. Without hybrid rice, there would be no Yuan Longping. Without Shanyou 63, there would be no Xie Hua'an. Liangyu Company made a net profit of more than 80 million yuan last year. What did it rely on? The Liangyu series varieties bred by Song Xieliang. Now is the best period for enterprise development, with many favorable policies and project support. Overall, seed enterprises are much bigger and stronger than in the early stage of industrialization, but on the whole they are still small, chaotic, and miscellaneous. At present, inventory pressure in the seed market is expanding, and the burden is very heavy. Under such circumstances, enterprises should be more solid and refined. The times create heroes. Enterprises should clarify their future development thinking according to their own scale. Large enterprises should continue to engage in breeding and develop competitive new varieties. Medium-sized enterprises can join forces with research institutes to tackle key problems. Small enterprises can obtain profits by purchasing good varieties. But in the final analysis, they still must rely on varieties. I hope this conference can reach consensus on breeding cooperation, use respective advantages for strong-strong alliances, and jointly breed truly good major varieties.