Starting today, this policy will affect your seed sales
Starting today, the newly revised Measures for the Administration of Licenses for Crop Seed Production and Operation (referred to as the Licensing Measures) will come into effect. What impact will the implementation of the Licensing Measures bring? What points need attention? Nongcai Jun takes you to find out.
① Seed production and operation will undergo adjustments in five aspects
To adapt to the new situation in the seed industry and accelerate the development of the modern seed industry, in November 2015, the National People's Congress deliberated and passed the new Seed Law, adjusting the seed production and operation licensing management system. This revision:
First, the seed production license and the seed operation license are merged into a seed production and operation license;
Second, the approval authority for seed production and operation licenses under the model combining breeding with production and operation, with the whole country as the effective area, is delegated to the provincial agricultural authorities, and the approval authority for seed production and operation licenses for conventional crop foundation seeds is delegated to the county-level agricultural authorities;
Third, the requirements for enterprise registered capital, fixed asset amounts, and the practice of issuing a license before a business license are abolished;
Fourth, a seed production and operation filing management system is established;
Fifth, the enterprise seed production and operation archive management system is improved.
② The "two licenses" are combined into one, with a sub-license established
Implementing the unification of the "two licenses" for seed production and operation is a substantive merger of the seed production license and the operation license.
As for the 2080 enterprises that currently hold both a seed production license and an operation license, applying for only one license will greatly reduce the volume of administrative licensing approvals and ease the burden on enterprises; implementing whole-industry-chain supervision, with enterprises holding seed processing and packaging rights as the main body, extending forward to seed production and backward to seed sales, will help strengthen interim and ex-post supervision of licensing and achieve traceable management.
The seed production and operation license is issued by the agricultural authority at the place where the seed enterprise is registered, according to its authority, and there is no need to repeatedly issue the same type of license at other seed production sites or seed sales sites.
Seed production commonly involves seed multiplication in different locations, with production varieties updated year by year, and production varieties and locations changing frequently.
The Licensing Measures divide the license into a main license and a sub-license. The main license states the license number, enterprise name, unified social credit code, domicile, legal representative, production and operation scope, production and operation method, effective area, validity period, issuing authority, date of issuance, and other matters; the sub-license states the crop type of the seeds produced, seed category, variety name and approval (registration) number, seed production location, and other contents. The main license and sub-license form an organic whole.
③ The threshold for enterprise registration is lowered
The new Seed Law abolishes the capital conditions for production and operation licensing, and the Licensing Measures abolish the requirements for enterprise registered capital and issuing a license before a business license.
From now on, in the industrial and commercial registration process, the registered capital system will change from a paid-in system to a subscribed system, and enterprises will bear corresponding responsibilities according to their subscribed registered capital; in the licensing approval process, qualification conditions related to seed production and operation will be emphasized, and enterprises will arrange production and operation activities according to their plans, easing the capital pressure of enterprise investment.
In terms of production and operation archive management, the Licensing Measures emphasize two aspects: first, ensuring traceability, and second, preserving seed samples.
Seed enterprises shall establish seed production and operation archives, including original records or vouchers formed in links such as field seed production, processing and packaging, and sales and distribution.
Seed production and operation archives shall be kept for at least five years, ensuring that the information recorded in the archives is continuous, complete, and true, and ensuring traceability. Seed production and operation operators shall preserve seed samples of the seeds they produce and operate by batch, and shall preserve samples of that crop type for at least two production cycles.
④ Seed dealership stores implement a filing system
The Seed Law establishes a seed production and operation filing system, advancing the shift of administrative approval from pre-approval to interim and ex-post supervision. The Licensing Measures stipulate that four common types of seed production and operation entities - those producing seeds under written entrustment, those selling seeds on consignment under written entrustment, those operating seeds without repackaging, and those establishing branch offices - shall file with the local county-level agricultural authority; where no agricultural authority has been established, they may file with the agricultural authority of the higher administrative region.
The filing content mainly includes the basic information of the seed production and operation operator and relevant information about the seeds it produces and operates. Licensed seed enterprises are not the subject of filing, but for written entrusted seed production, written entrusted seed consignment sales, and establishment of branch offices, the licensed seed enterprise shall, when applying for the license or after receiving the license, promptly fill in the relevant information on the China Seed Industry Information Network and generate a filing serial number, ensuring that the entrusted party or subordinate branch office smoothly completes the filing work.
⑤ Restrictions on farmers' own retained seed exchange
Article 37 of the Seed Law stipulates that if farmers have surplus conventional seeds they have bred themselves for their own use, they may sell or exchange them at the local rural fair trade market without needing to apply for a seed production and operation license.
After the implementation of the Licensing Measures, further clarification will be made regarding individual farmers, exchange areas, and exchange quantities.
The Measures stipulate that an individual farmer should be a farmer who has signed a rural land contract in the form of a household contract responsibility system; the local rural fair trade market should be in the township (town) area where the individual farmer is located; and the quantity of seeds sold or exchanged should not exceed the annual seed usage of that farmer's contracted household land.
Those who sell or exchange seeds in violation of the regulations shall be deemed to be producing and operating seeds without a license. (Nongcai Network Seed Industry Baodian)