China remains one of the
world’s largest seed producers and users and is
self-sufficient in planting seeds for major crops including
most grains, oilseeds and cotton. Total annual demand for
all planting seeds is estimated at over 12.5 million metric
tons (MMT), and commercial seed production for 2004 was
estimated at about 8.5 MMT.
China’s seed market
continues to be highly fragmented, with over nine thousand
registered “Seed Companies” nationwide. Better integration
of variety research and development, seed breeding and
distribution enterprises remains a goal for policy makers,
industry associations, and academic institutes. Post
forecasts demand for vegetable and fruit seeds to continue
increasing along with the seed buyers’ steady income growth,
offering more opportunities for international traders. The
Chinese government’s policy objectives to increase grain
production in MY04/05 dampened demand for grass seed and as
a result imports of these products declined. They are,
however, expected to recover in the near future, because
China also has set a policy objective to restore the
grassland ecosystem in it’s western provinces, which will
require tremendous quantities of specialized seeds if the
government is to achieve its objective. On the export side
of the equation, exports of rice and vegetable seeds are
expected to continue growing because of China’s lower cost
of production than many other competitor countries.
China’s policies, laws, and
regulations on the seed industry still place restrictions on
foreign investment and trade, in particular, for the major
crops such as corn and soybeans. Despite implementation of
the Seed Law and Plant New Variety Protection Law, foreign
seed companies’ products still are experiencing serious
problems with infringement on their intellectual property
rights (IPR), i.e., Chinese companies are copying these
companies’ seed genetics and not paying royalties and/or
simply mislabeling seeds as Bt that are not.
