By Wu Zhenjun, Research Department of Rural Economy, DRC

Research Report No 158, 2015 (Total 4843)

Abstract:

China's seed industry transformation and development still face numerous problems in scientific research system reform, integrated system building of breeding, propagation and extension of seeds, intellectual property protection, and international exchanges and cooperation, etc. These problems are specifically manifested in blurred dividing line between public breeding and commercial breeding, weak corporate innovation capability, inefficient traditional breeding model, low-quality yet high-cost seeds, the variety review and approval system unbeneficial to R&D and extension of new varieties, low-level intellectual property right protection, and difficulty in "going global" to build a global seed breeding system, etc. If these problems remain unsolved, seed industry may find itself extremely difficult in development. In response to these prominent problems, this paper gives some policy options which suggest that relevant departments clarify the public and commercial breeding watershed, nourish large-scale modern seed enterprises to strengthen industrial concentration, build production bases of commercialized-seed-producing model, transform the variety review and approval system into the registration system, implement as soon as possible the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants of the 1991 version, and take various measures to promote the seed industry's drive in “going global” so as to spur the sound and smooth development of the seed industry in China.