BACKGROUND
Objectives of the
mission
As
part of a drive to improve agricultural productivity and spur a green
revolution in Ghana and as well achieving objective (1) of the Food And Agricultural Sector Development Policy (FASDEPII). The government reviewed and promulgated a
new seed law hence, providing an incentive for investment and knowledge acquisition
from more advance countries who are experts in the sector. One of the advance
countries is China for which the government of Ghana and the Peoples Republic
of China through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture nominated Mr. Theophilus Zottorgloh
and Mr. Jonas Kweku Mintah to understudy the seed situation in China for its
implementation and adoption in the country. Other areas of interest include
- Impact of research and
development in the seed sector
- Understand the process
involved in seed testing and quality control process
- Understand
how seed companies without research facilities access breeder seed to
produce foundation seed on their own,
- Know
the types of contractual agreements between seed companies and research
institutes for the acquisition of breeder seed,
- Appreciate
seed certification procedures under liberalized systems,
- Gain
knowledge on how to monitor/trace breeder seed accessed till certified
seed is sold, and
- Learn more about how seeds
are packaged by the individual companies in China.
Studies
carried out to achieve these objectives include
·
A
brief introduction on china
·
Tomato
hybrid seed production
·
Comparisons
of soybean variety trial
·
Introduction to seed testing and quality
control
·
China
seed legislation and policy
·
Crop
seeds production
·
Crop
variety regional trials and approval
·
Development
of agriculture in China
·
Good Agricultural practices
·
Hybrid
rice technologies
·
Research
and development of seed production
·
Science
and technology progress
·
System
of China for potato seed multiplication
·
Technology
systems on efficient use of precipitation at dry farm lands on Weibei plateau
·
Sustainable
development of china’s
Participants
arrived in Beijing on August 18 and checked into the Yong’an Hotel. Soon
afterwards, a briefing session took place where the purpose, objectives and
program of the tour were discussed. After a brief self-introduction by
participants, we had a brief introduction about China; here participants were
informed that China is situated in the east and middle of Asia and on the west
shore of the Pacific. It has more than
20 neighbor countries that either Border on its territory or lie across the
nearby seas. After eight years of anti-Japanese war and three years of Civil
War against the Kuomintang Party, Chair MAO Zedong led the Communist Party of
China seized power and established the People’s Republic of China on October
1st, 1949. Chair MAO is the founding father of new China and he died in 1976.
The Memorial Hall of Mao Zedong is located at the Tian’anmen Square. China has
a land area of about 9.6 million square
kilometers and a sea area of about 4.73 million square kilometers. They have
the largest population of 1.37 Billion. (22% of the world’s total), among which
50.32% living in rural areas (source:
the sixth national population census in 2010) it is expected that the
population will peak to 1.5 billion in 2050.
ADMINISTRATIVE
SYSTEMS IN CHINA
There are
five (5) administrative levels in the Peoples Republic of China these include
•
Central
•
Provincial
•
City or prefecture
•
County
•
Township
China contains 23 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5
autonomous regions, 2 special administrative areas. Since 1978, China has
implemented reform and opening up policy and transformed its planned economy
system into an initial socialist market economy system. In 2010, China’s GDP
was US$ 5878.6 billion, increased by 100 times than 1978. And now, China is the
second largest economic power in the world only after USA. China has been the
fastest-growing major nation for the past 30 years with an average annual GDP
growth rate above 10%. Because of the large population, the average GDP of
China is about US$ 4300 in 2010, ranking 95th in the world.
HISTORY
AND STATUS QUO OF CHINA’S SEED INDUSTRY:
The Chinese seed industry has gone through a lot stages
the first being self-sufficiency; Seed production and supply highly depended
self-selection, self-multiplication, and self-reservation by farmers, while
supplemented by the state this occurred around the late 1970s to early 1990s.
The second
stage was planning the economy of seed production and supply here the
government established state-owned Seed companies, which conducted seed
production and supply Hybrid rice and
corn and this showed success till the mid-1990s.
The third stage focused on the commercialization of
Seed Industry. Which was skewed to timeline of events in the seed industry such
as China’s Seed Legislation and Policy, National Seed Program started in 1995, Seed
Law of PRC entered into force in 2000, China entered into WTO in 2001, the
State Council issued circular No.[2006]40 in 2006, and another was issued in
2011 (No. [2011]8).
Current
situation on China’s seed industry
Since the mid-1990s achievements for genetic
improvement: compact maize varieties, early-maturing rice varieties, super
rice, BT-cotton, three-line hybrid cotton, hybrid vegetables et al. There are
over 380,000 accessions of agricultural germplasm resources to be under
long-term conservation under national Gene Bank, costs for germplasm
identification and evaluation have been financed by central government. Increasing role of private sector in Research
and Development (R&D). A central
role of over 400 public research institutions has been changed following the
boom of private sector in R&D. especially for hybrid varieties. Private
research has led to the establishment over 90 seed companies in 2009 amounting
to 600 million RMB (100 million USD) in R&D under the watch of the Ministry
of Food and Agriculture. Over the past 60 years, there have been over 7000 new
crop varieties to be released. China is of relatively strong when it comes to international
competitiveness in some fields of seed in R&D. The contribution of Genetic
improvement has led to about 40% yield increase.
Seed
Production
Seed
productions are carried out by seed companies in ecological and geographical
advantage regions. At present, China is the 2nd largest seed market worldwide,
following the U.S. as the No.1. Value of commercial market for seed has rose to
over 50 billion RMB (7.5 billion USD) up to now. The estimated potential value
of commercial seed market is 80 billion RMB (12 billion USD). Annual demand for seed market in china is
approximate 12.5 billion kg. The share of the hybrid maize and rice, and
vegetable hectares planted with purchased seed has reached 100%; with the share
of the conventional crop hectares planted with farmer saved seed has
decreased.
CHINA SEED LAW
This
aims:
•
To
establish fair market competition and achieve a higher productivity of
agriculture
•
To
regulate the use of germplasm
•
To
protect the interest of both producer, merchant and consumer
•
To
regulate the genetic improvement, and behavior of seed production and marketing
The
Basic areas covered by China’s Legislation
•
Protection
System of Germplasm Resources
•
Variety
Registration system
•
New
Variety Protection System
•
Seed
Production and Marketing License System
•
Record
System of Seed Production and Marketing
•
Truth-in-Labeling
System
•
Quarantine System
•
Seed
Reserve System
•
Bio-safety
Evaluation System of Genetically Modified Plant Varieties
RECOMMENDATION FOR
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEED INDUSTRY IN GHANA
Because
of diversified farmer demands and special needs for timely delivery of seeds,
there is a need for SEEDPAG and seed
companies to create network to deliver seeds were needed most. Corporate sales
can also be encouraged.
Over 95% of the maize planted in China is
hybrid seed. China has a long and well
established history in maize hybrid seed development and usage. Which Ghana can
easily learn and adopt
Pricing
and policy (East meets west).historically, hybrid seed corn prices in China
were quite low which provided little investment in R &D, but a price of (USD1.5/kg), for hybrid corn seeds
encourage great investment targeting improved productivity. China government is
clearly encouraging industrial consolidation and great investment to local seed
industry.
Advantages
of efficient seed production efficient seed production is central to seed
company profitability---not only bigger yield mean bigger efficient, but also
new variety with high yield. This puts one seed company in a more competitive
position than other seed company. Other recommendations include
l Reform scientific research operating system and
mechanism.
l Optimize company-university-research resources to
help market leaders foster the core competitiveness in biotech breeding.
l Considering the risk control and safety management
of GM products, Government should control the threshold in biotech breeding and
establish strict market access policy to avoid chaos.
l Strengthen legislation and improve regulations,
rules, procedures and policies of the seed industry for the deepening of the
industrialization reform and to ensure grain security.
l Ghana
should enact the legislation of transgenic technology in advance to protect the
achievements invested by our country, to ensure the healthy and orderly
development in the whole chain of research, breeding, seed
production-supply-service sections.
CONCLUSION
I believe
that with the support of the government, industrial resources allocation of
Ghana’s seed industry will be optimized. Each participant of the industry will
show their strengths to achieve the prospects of win-win. For the seed industry
in Ghana to develop it will be inevitable to avoid stakeholders in “Innovation,
collaboration, innovation and management” among governments, research institutes
and seed companies.
It
is clear that for the seed industry to grow and develop in Ghana there is the
need to develop or establish field trials at the regional level, universities,
and at the research institutions. Lots of research attention should also be
focus on processing and handling equipments. The enforcement of the seed law is
also important. Here areas such as definition of fake seeds, non seed, poor
quality seed, and truth in labeling should be clearly spelt out in the law.
I sincerely write for all of us to cooperate to develop
seed industry both in Ghana and in other countries, let us jointly propel our
seed industry to grow stronger in the battle for the guarantee of grain supply.
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