How important is it to hold on to "Chinese seeds" to our country's food security?

Seeds are the "chips" of agriculture, and food security is related to national security. In the new era and with a new mission, how can we win the "turnaround battle" of modern agriculture? It all starts with a seed...

Written by reporter Wang Xueying Edited by Ji Jingjing

New Media Editor/Li Yunfeng

Interview experts

Liu Luxiang (Chief Scientist of the National Space Breeding Project, Deputy Director of the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences)

Guo Ganggang (Deputy Director of Crop Germplasm Resources Center, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences)

"Chinese seeds grow in Chinese fields, and Chinese grains go into Chinese bowls." Food security is a major national issue that concerns the livelihoods of 1.4 billion people. Seeds are the chips of food, and a good seed is like a key to creating miracles. It is related to our country's prosperity, people's strength, and scientific and technological strength.

On the afternoon of April 10, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during his inspection and research at the Yazhou Bay Seed Laboratory in Sanya, Hainan Province that seeds are the key to my country's food security. Only by holding China's seeds firmly with our own hands can we hold China's rice bowl firmly and achieve food security. Seed sources must be independent and controllable, and seed industry technology must be self-reliant and self-reliant.

At present, my country still relies on imports for many crop seeds. How can we change the current situation? In the past 20 years, what efforts has China made to achieve seed independence? What results have been achieved?

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Food is the foundation of a country. A solid foundation will bring peace to the country.

As the saying goes, "With food in hand, there is no need to worry." For a country, grain production determines whether the people can have a stable "rice bowl" and is more related to a nation's initiative in international competition.

In recent years, the global population has continued to grow, the shortage of available arable land resources in the world has become increasingly prominent, and the increasingly frequent extreme weather, local wars and century-long epidemics have greatly increased the uncertainty of the international food market. On the other hand, as the international situation becomes increasingly treacherous and changeable, the competition among countries in the world for food is becoming increasingly fierce. Seeds are the basis of food, and the competition for seed industry has become another new battlefield in international competition. Whoever can be the first to possess breakthrough innovative varieties will have the initiative in the world seed industry competition and safeguard the bottom line of national security from the source.

In the context of global competition, whoever controls oil controls all countries, and whoever controls food controls all of humanity. As early as the mid-1990s, the former US seed company Monsanto used "seeds" as "guns" to carry out a notorious "agricultural massacre" in Argentina: In 1996, the Argentine government, which was deeply in a foreign debt crisis, hoped to ease the financial crisis by increasing soybean production, and therefore accepted Monsanto's soybean seed "aid".

▲Argentines took to the streets to call for a boycott of Monsanto (Source: RT)

At the beginning, Monsanto sold seeds and pesticides at attractive prices that were generally lower than the market price, and did not charge any patent fees. For this reason, local farmers gave up planting traditional soybeans and turned to Monsanto's new varieties. In less than six years, nearly 99% of Argentina's soybean market was taken over by Monsanto, while Argentina's local soybean seed and pesticide companies went bankrupt due to being overwhelmed. Just when the Argentines thought this was a "win-win" international aid, in 1999, Monsanto suddenly asked Argentine farmers to pay seed patent fees, and on this basis, filed a lawsuit against the main European buyers of Argentine soybean exports to put pressure on the Argentine government... In this way, a "aid" about seeds made Argentina lose control of its own soybean industry. Countless Argentine farmers went bankrupt, the Argentine government had to pay high compensation, and was forced to open the country to Monsanto, completely becoming a "fish meat" that could be slaughtered in the international market.

However, the tragedy of losing seed sovereignty is not only happening in Argentina. Similar "seed tragedy" has occurred from Brazil to Mexico and even in our country.

Few people know that China was a net exporter of soybeans before 1995. However, this huge transformation from a net exporter to the world's largest importer was also caused by a seed.

According to relevant media reports in 2019, Monsanto accidentally obtained a wild soybean seed from China during its inspection in China in 2000. Later, they successfully found the high-yield and high-resistance genes of wild soybeans based on this, and cultivated new soybean varieties with lower costs, higher yields, higher conversion and better resistance.

Then Monsanto repeated its old tricks, forcing China's soybean raw material supply to drop sharply in just a few years. Faced with the inability of domestic soybean farmers to meet production, the few remaining Chinese soybean processing companies had no choice but to turn to the US market and were forced to purchase soybeans at high prices. At this time, the US financial market suddenly changed, and soybean prices fell by more than 50% in 7 months. Soon, US companies filed huge claims against Chinese soybean companies on the grounds of overdue delivery... At this point, China's soybean crushing companies collapsed across the board, and the international status of the soybean industry in China and the United States also changed. Now, China, which once held more than 90% of the world's wild soybean seed sources, still has a soybean import dependence of 85.5%. The "soybean tragedy" is still painful to this day!

A tiny seed is linked to the rise and fall and survival of a country. Seed industry is the foundation of agriculture. Only with seed industry security can there be food security. In the midst of a major change that has not been seen in a century and facing the turbulent international market, if we want to secure the rice bowl of the Chinese people, we must firmly grasp the safety of the "basic plate" of agriculture - seeds!

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Chinese land grows Chinese seeds, and Chinese seeds produce Chinese grains

For China, which has nearly 1/5 of the world's population, to feed 1.4 billion mouths, it needs to consume at least 700,000 tons of grain, 98,000 tons of oil, 1.92 million tons of vegetables and 230,000 tons of meat every day, while the total arable land in my country is less than 1/10 of the world's total arable land. In this situation, the whole world can't help but ask, "Who will feed the Chinese?" The answer to such a question that concerns the survival of the country can only be "the Chinese themselves."

Grain is the foundation of the country, and the seed industry is the basis of grain. Only with good seeds can there be abundant grain, and only with food security can people be safe. "If you don't choose the seeds when farming, you will work yourself to death and get nothing." General Secretary Xi Jinping used a vivid metaphor to tell us that if we want to create higher yields on the basis of limited arable land and meet the people's food consumption upgrade from "eating enough" to "eating well", optimizing seeds is the key.

Since the founding of New China, in order to hold the "Chinese bowl" in its hands well and steadily, my country's seed industry has been advancing through trial and error and has achieved a historic leap.

▲Villagers in Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province drive harvesters to harvest wheat in the fields (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

"At present, my country's rice, wheat, soybeans, rapeseed, cotton and other crops are all bred independently. The area of ​​​​independently bred corn varieties has increased to 91%, and vegetables have increased to more than 87%. The contribution rate of improved varieties to crop yields has reached more than 45%, providing strong seed source support for ensuring national food security and the effective supply of important agricultural products," said Wan Jianmin, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Rice and wheat varieties have achieved complete self-sufficiency, "with a self-sufficiency rate of 100%." ​​In this regard, Zheng Huaiguo, director and researcher of the Knowledge Management and Intelligence Research Center of the Data and Economics Institute of the Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, bluntly stated, "It can be said that my country's staple food varieties have achieved self-sufficiency and can meet the needs of the Chinese market."

According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in the past decade, my country's annual application volume for new plant variety protection has ranked first in the world for four consecutive years. The quality qualification rate of my country's major crop seeds has remained stable at more than 98%, the area of ​​independently bred varieties accounts for more than 95%, the coverage of improved crop varieties exceeds 96%, and the contribution rate of improved varieties to grain production exceeds 45%. During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, my country's seed industry has developed rapidly, forming three national breeding and seed production bases in Hainan, Gansu and Sichuan, and building 52 large counties for hybrid seed production and 100 district and county improved seed bases, laying a solid foundation for improving the quality and quantity of my country's improved varieties.

At present, except for some high-end vegetable varieties such as tomatoes and broccoli seeds, which have a high degree of import dependence, my country's common vegetable seeds have a self-sufficiency rate of more than 87%. By the end of 2019, there were 69 vegetable seeds independently developed by my country. Taking Shouguang, Shandong as an example, among the vegetable seeds such as cucumbers and cowpeas sold by local seed companies, domestic seeds account for more than 90%... The era when "foreign seeds" monopolized China's vegetable fields is now a "thing of the past".

Despite the rapid rise of the domestic seed industry, it is undeniable that my country still has a large demand for imported seeds. According to data from the China Seed Trade Association, in 2018, my country imported 72,700 tons of crop seeds, with a total import value of RMB 3.2 billion, and a seed import and export deficit of RMB 1.736 billion. So, does this mean that my country is still a country with a high demand for seed imports?

"60,000 to 70,000 tons of imported seeds may seem like a lot, but compared to the approximately 10 billion kilograms of seeds used in my country each year, this ratio is negligible, less than 0.1%. So first of all, in terms of total volume, we are not a country that imports large quantities of seeds," Liu Luxiang, chief scientist of the National Space Breeding Project and deputy director of the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told reporters: "Secondly, in terms of structure, the seeds of our staple crops like rice, sorghum and wheat are basically absolutely safe. The only high-end vegetable varieties that are imported are relatively large."

In 2021, Zhang Taolin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, stated at a press conference on comprehensively promoting rural revitalization and accelerating agricultural and rural modernization that although there are still certain shortcomings and weaknesses, overall, "the safety of seeds used in my country's agriculture is guaranteed and the risks are controllable. Especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, my country's seed technology and industrial development have achieved remarkable results."

In recent years, my country's seed industry has also continued to exert its strength in the international market. According to China Business News, in 2017, China National Chemical Corporation completed the acquisition of Swiss Syngenta for US$43 billion. In this regard, Chen Chao, operations director of the China Seed Life Science and Technology Center, said that with the completion of the merger and integration, "the European Union represented by Bayer, the United States represented by Corteva, and China represented by Syngenta, if these three companies are combined, their global market share should reach 50% to 60%." So far, the situation of the three major players in the global seed industry has been determined, and in the future, China will play a more important role in the world seed market.

▲At the China Seed Life Science and Technology Center, seed manager Nie Dongming found rice hybrid seeds such as Quanyou 607, Chuanzhongyou 3877, and Nanjing Xiangzhan needed for scientific research in the germplasm resource low-temperature sample storage warehouse with 160,000 seeds (Photo source: Yangtze River Daily)

Over the past few decades, China's seed industry has gradually grown stronger with more setbacks. It is the continuous innovation and breakthrough of the "chip" of the modern seed industry that allows Chinese land to use Chinese seeds and use Chinese seeds to produce enough Chinese food for the Chinese people. This has provided a solid guarantee for the supply of seeds for my country's crops and laid a solid foundation for my country's food security.

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Strengthening the seed industry and building a strong agricultural country

From improving a single variety to developing an entire industry chain, China's rice bowl is filled with the innovation and wisdom of Chinese breeders and entrepreneurs, reflecting China's efforts to achieve high-quality agricultural development and transformation.

Protecting seed safety starts with a good environment

As a national strategic and basic core industry, the healthy development of the seed industry is inseparable from the support of national macroeconomic policies and even more inseparable from the protection of laws and regulations. In 2000, my country promulgated the Seed Law of the People's Republic of China, officially putting crop germplasm resources into the stage of legal management; in 2015, the National Medium- and Long-Term Development Plan for the Protection and Utilization of Crop Germplasm Resources (2015-2030) was issued, clarifying the overall work ideas with safety protection and efficient utilization as the core, and proposing three systems, four main tasks and five key action plans; in 2021, the 20th meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform reviewed and approved the Seed Industry Revitalization Action Plan, and the "Regional Trial Measures for Major Crop Varieties" and "Administrative Measures for Crop Seed Production and Operation Licenses" were successively issued... In just 20 years, through the standardized management of the seed market, China's seed industry has achieved a rapid transformation from the "scientific research unit breeding + enterprise promotion" model to a "modern crop seed industry system with industry as the leading force, enterprises as the main body, bases as the support, production, education and research combined, and 'breeding, propagation and promotion integrated'". Data shows that from 1999 to 2018, my country's seed market has increased from 33 billion yuan to 120 billion yuan, with an annual compound growth rate of 7%.

Build a perfect germplasm resource protection system

During the 2022 National Two Sessions, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that we must vigorously promote the construction of major national innovation platforms in the seed industry, and especially required "strengthening the collection, protection, development and utilization of germplasm resources, and accelerating the pace of industrialization of biological breeding."

As a carrier of important genetic information of plants, each seed records a world, which makes germplasm resources a key strategic resource for every country. In the current era of global integration, the richer the germplasm resources, the greater the potential for gene development, and the more likely they are to gain a firm foothold in the international market. In other words, in order to achieve the goal of becoming a strong agricultural technology country, China needs to establish a strong national seed bank of its own.

From the construction of my country's first low-temperature germplasm bank in 1978 to the completion and operation of the new National Crop Germplasm Bank at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 2021, my country has now built the world's largest and most advanced national germplasm bank.

▲Exterior view of the National Crop Germplasm Bank (Source: Farmers Daily)

"The designed capacity of our bank is 1.5 million copies, which can meet our country's major needs for safe preservation, accurate identification, new gene discovery and breeding of germplasm resources in the next 50 years," said Li Lihui, director of the Germplasm Resources Center of the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The National Crop Germplasm Resources Bank covers all germplasm resource preservation methods in the world, and the seed storage life reaches 50 years.

"Its protection capacity is the best in the world, and its comprehensive protection level is world-leading," said Guo Ganggang, deputy director of the Crop Germplasm Resources Center. The new repository is an important part of agricultural biological germplasm resources, and will play a leading and exemplary role in the construction and development of the preservation technology system for forest, grass, medicinal and other plant germplasm resources, as well as microorganisms, animals and other germplasm resources. "It has greatly enhanced the long-term, centralized and safe preservation capacity of my country's crop germplasm resources, realized automated, information-based and intelligent management, and made my country's crop germplasm resource protection system more complete and advanced," he said.

At present, the National Crop Germplasm Bank, as the "base camp" for the long-term safe preservation of my country's crop germplasm resources, has formed a national crop germplasm resource conservation system led by the state together with 1 duplicate bank, 10 medium-term banks, 43 germplasm nurseries, 214 in situ conservation sites, 1 germplasm resource information center, and provincial medium-term banks and germplasm nurseries in 31 provinces (cities, autonomous regions).

▲Yunnan Province Crop Germplasm Resource Conservation Bank (Photo source: Chuanguan News)

For example, in Yunnan, the Southwest China Wild Biological Germplasm Resource Bank and the Yunnan Crop Germplasm Resource Conservation Bank at the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, respectively house 36% of my country's seed plant species and 10% of China's wild crop germplasm resources. As my country's crop germplasm resource protection system becomes more and more perfect, my country's seed industry will be more confident in dealing with various natural risks and ensuring national food security.

Biological breeding promotes the development of China's seed industry

In the midst of a major change that has not been seen in a century, the food problem is no longer a problem for a single country, but an important bargaining chip between countries. Whoever is the first to find a new technological breakthrough and seize a new commanding height will gain the upper hand.

"Compared with our own country, China's seed industry has developed very fast, and its independent variety capabilities have also been greatly improved. However, compared with the advanced level of foreign countries, there is still a big gap in our seed industry," said Zhang Yanqiu, president of the China Seed Association, in an interview with the media. The world's seed industry has entered the fourth scientific and technological revolution characterized by "biotechnology + informatization." In particular, international seed giants are all developing in groups. Under such circumstances, promoting the rapid development of biobreeding technology will undoubtedly play an important role in my country's realization of self-reliance in seed technology and building a strong agricultural science and technology country.

The 2020 Central Economic Work Conference proposed that the industrialization and application of biological breeding should be promoted in an orderly manner under the premise of respecting science and strict supervision. In February 2022, the State Council officially issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Promoting Agricultural and Rural Modernization", pointing out that in promoting the revitalization of the seed industry, we should "accelerate the implementation of major scientific and technological projects in agricultural biological breeding and promote the industrialization and application of biological breeding in an orderly manner."

Accelerating agricultural biological breeding innovation and building a modern seed industry innovation system are key measures to implement the central government's decision-making and deployment to achieve self-reliance in seed industry science and technology, and are the fundamental path to achieve independent and controllable seed sources. With the support of a series of national science and technology plans, my country's technical level of transgenic breeding has entered the forefront of the international second echelon, and a series of laws, regulations, technical procedures and management systems have been formulated in terms of supervision. Wan Jianmin introduced that at present, my country has mastered 396 new genes with great breeding value, gradually breaking the monopoly of multinational companies in the field of genes, and has also made significant breakthroughs in core breeding technologies such as crop gene editing and haploid breeding. The genetic transformation efficiency of japonica rice and wheat has exceeded 80% and 20% respectively, and soybeans and corn have also reached more than 10%. With the continuous development of biological breeding technology, my country has now cultivated a number of new crop varieties with market competitiveness, including cotton and papaya.

▲At the China Seed Life Science and Technology Center, scientists are doing rice genotyping analysis. Through the scanning and screening of the rice whole genome breeding chip, they can ensure the cultivation of high-quality seeds (Photo source: Yangtze River Daily)

By the end of 2010, my country had approved nearly 200 varieties of transgenic insect-resistant cotton, with a planting rate of over 99%, a cumulative promotion and application area of ​​315 million mu, and an additional output value of over 44 billion yuan, making a huge contribution to the independent and sustainable development of China's cotton industry. In addition to playing a huge role in the cotton industry, insect-resistant cotton technology has also been widely used to prevent and control the damage of cotton bollworms to crops such as corn and soybeans, reducing the use of insecticides by 70% to 80%, and effectively protecting the agricultural ecological environment.

Producing good seeds is not only a popular project that concerns the "rice bowl" of 1.4 billion Chinese people, but also a security project that concerns the national security of the Chinese nation. On the new journey of China's agricultural modernization history, let us blow the horn of science and technology, start with cultivating a good seed, fight a good "turnaround battle" in the seed industry, use China's high-quality seeds to ensure China's food security, and jointly write a new chapter of the times.

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