Behind the failure of super rice harvest: there are weaknesses in the varieties with institutional defects.

In mid-April, the media successively published reports on the yield reduction and harvest loss of "Liangyou 0293" hybrid rice in Anhui Province in October last year, which aroused public attention to super rice. Behind this seemingly accidental incident, it not only highlights the defects of the domestic agricultural insurance and relief system, but also reflects the shortcomings of the current management system of China's seed industry.

"Liangyou 0293": the variety has its own weakness.

The cause of the incident was that in October last year, "Liangyou 0293" rice planted in six cities of Bengbu, Anqing, Hefei, Chuzhou, Maanshan, and Huainan, Anhui Province, was infected with rice blast, resulting in a large area of reduced yield and no harvest, and the affected area exceeded 10,000 mu.

After the failure incident, many people thought that "Liangyou 0293" had a lot to do with Academician Yuan Longping. To this end, a reporter from China Economic Weekly immediately contacted Yuan Longping's secretary Yang Yaosong. He said that Mr. Yuan was away on business and was inconvenient for interviews. "although Yuan Longping is known as the father of hybrid rice, the variety 'Liangyou 0293' is not bred by him personally."

According to the official website of Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center, the "Liangyou 0293" project is the research result of the National High Technology Research and Development Program, which is hosted by Hunan Hybrid Rice Center. Luo Xiaohe and others are the completion of the project. It was approved as national rice by the National Variety approval Committee (serial number: 2006045) in 2006. According to the examination and approval opinion, this variety is suitable to be planted as one-cropping middle rice in the rice area of the Yangtze River valley (except Wuling Mountain area) in Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, as well as in the area with light incidence of rice blast in the south of Henan Province.

On the cause of this incident, relevant officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, seed production enterprise Yuan Longping Agricultural Hi-Tech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Longping Hi-Tech", 000998.SZ), Wuhe County Agricultural Committee and Huashang District seed Management Station have basically the same conclusion: continuous low temperature and continuous rain, varieties themselves are highly susceptible to rice blast, and inadequate preventive measures are the main reasons for the yield reduction and failure of "Liangyou 0293".

However, behind the occasional incident, there is also the "iniquity" of insufficient R & D investment in Longping Tech for many years. Longping Hi-Tech was founded in 1999 by Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2000. In 2004, after the capital master Wu Yueshi entered, Longping Hi-Tech became a private holding enterprise. Over the years, the company's business is involved in pesticides and fertilizers, real estate development, processing of agricultural and sideline products, investment in the securities secondary market and other fields, but few achievements have been made in the research and development of the seed industry. its main products, such as "Y Liangyou 1", "Shenliangyou 5814" and other varieties are purchased from outside (editor's note: in October 2013, China Economic Weekly once made an in-depth report on "seed industry crisis: not strong, first surplus").

Chen Zhixin, secretary of the board of directors of Longping Hi-Tech, said: "the management is aware of this problem. In recent years, the company has withdrawn from real estate, pesticides, fertilizers and other industries. The main industry has further gathered and increased investment in biotechnology breeding in the seed industry. It takes more than eight years to cultivate a variety, and a big change will take place this year."

Since the "Liangyou 0293" variety with major defects is susceptible to rice blast, why can it be examined and approved by the National Variety approval Committee? Deng Qiyun, chief scientist of the State key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, said that the project was passed in 2006, when there were relatively few national examination test indicators, and then elements such as resistance to high and low temperature, disease and insect resistance were added, and substandard varieties were vetoed by one vote.

Resistance refers to the ability of plants to resist adverse environment, such as cold resistance, drought resistance, salt resistance, resistance to diseases and insect pests, which need to stand the market test. Compared with "Liangyou 0293" and "Y Liangyou 1", their resistance to rice blast was "the highest grade 9", but the market performance was very different. In recent years, the promotion area of "Liangyou 0293" in the country is less than 500000 mu. Before that, Chuzhou, Hefei, Maanshan and other places reported that this variety was infected with rice blast, while the extension area of "Y Liangyou 1" exceeded 8 million mu, ranking first in the country. However, the market has not reported the phenomenon of rice blast infection.

On April 13, Longping Hi-Tech issued an announcement that the company decided to stop selling "Liangyou 0293" with an average of 5.6grade of rice blast, the highest grade of 9, and a resistance frequency of 80%.

Institutional defects behind the incident: market calls for risk diversification Mechanism and seed Variety Registration system

According to the field appraisal carried out by the Anhui Provincial Committee of Agriculture and other departments, the important reason for the yield reduction and failure of "Liangyou 0293" rice is the natural disaster. It is understood that the Guoyuan Insurance Company, which is responsible for the loss of production, has basically put its claim funds in place at present. Among them, the amount of compensation for the final harvest is more than 200 yuan per mu, while the amount of production reduction depends on the situation, and the amount of compensation varies from dozens of yuan to more than 100 yuan per mu. With government subsidies, farmers who failed this time can get no more than 350 yuan per mu. Compared with the output value of more than 1000 yuan per mu, the amount of claims and subsidies not more than 350 yuan per mu is on the low side, so it is difficult for the affected farmers to bear the losses.

According to the 2014 Statistical Bulletin on National Economic and Social Development issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, 24.89 million hectares of crops were affected in 2014, of which 3.09 million hectares were lost, resulting in direct economic losses of 12.9 billion yuan due to low temperature freezing and snow disasters. Who will bear such a huge loss?

In fact, China's agricultural insurance system is faced with some problems, such as insufficient government intervention, lack of effective demand, lack of professional insurance practitioners, limited types of agricultural insurance, low awareness of farmers' insurance and so on. China's agricultural insurance process is slow and there are systemic risks.

Kui Guozhu, a professor at the Capital University of Economics and Economics, said that because natural disasters may cause huge losses, it is difficult for insurance companies to bear them alone, and the key lies in a sound catastrophe risk diversification mechanism. Take government intervention as an example, developed countries generally give a certain proportion of subsidies to insurance premiums, such as 30% in the United States, 50% in Canada, 50% in Japan, 20% in Spain, and 56% in the Philippines.

Longping Hi-Tech, which is in a deep whirlpool, has also shown its sincerity. The company plans to set up a post-disaster relief fund for the seed industry, and intends to draw a certain proportion of its annual profits into the fund to provide relief to farmers suffering from natural disasters. Chen Zhixin, secretary of Longping Hi-Tech, said that Longping Hi-Tech does not bear the compensation responsibility for reducing production and losing harvest, but it will give some compensation to farmers out of humanitarianism.

Fang Longping Hi-Tech involved is excluded from liability for compensation. According to experts, this is because according to the relevant spirit of China's current "seed Law," as long as a variety is examined and approved by the National Variety examination and approval Committee, in the face of force majeure, enterprises that produce and sell seeds do not have to bear responsibility.

"various domestic scientific research institutes and seed companies, large and small, are flocking to variety approval. Apart from the reasons of interest, the most important thing behind it is the shield of 'exemption'. If this' hidden rule'is not changed, it is empty talk that our industry is responsible for agricultural production and farmers." Liu Shi, who has served as the president of a number of seed companies, suggested a gradual transition from a "variety approval system" to a "variety registration system" in order to comply with the law of market-oriented development.

In short, the "variety registration system" is a system in which the seed management department is only responsible for reviewing whether the information and materials provided by seed companies fulfill the obligation of information disclosure, which is similar to the securities issuance registration system.

Also holding the viewpoint of "variety registration system" are Tong Pingya, an expert in the seed industry of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Zhang Shihuang, chief scientist of the national corn industry technology system. At the National two sessions this year, the "three Rural" Committee of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee submitted a "proposal on reforming China's current seed industry management system and expanding and strengthening the national seed industry." with the opportunity that the "seed Law" is about to be revised, we will reduce administrative licensing procedures, reform the current major crop variety approval system, and adopt the worldwide variety registration system, so as to make enterprises truly responsible to the market and farmers.