Ministry encourages researchers to become agricultural entrepreneurs

China will develop a market-oriented and commercialized seed industry and create a better policy environment to encourage scientists' input in the sector, a senior official said.

Zhang Laiwu, vice-minister of science and technology, explained the ministry's plan to deepen reform of the agricultural sci-tech system and promote rural entrepreneurship at a news conference on Thursday.

Highlighting the importance of modernization in the seed industry, Zhang said, "China has a large seed industry, but it is both dispersed and weak compared to the world's most powerful seed businesses.

"The key is to build a commercialized seed industry in China, which will require a whole new set of institutional arrangements," he said.

The systematic commercialization of China's seed industry not only requires reform of the industry's overall layout and regional distribution, but should also bring scientific research and the seed industry closer to increase the Chinese seed industry's market competence, he said.

The ministry has adopted a series of reforms since 2012, including allocating 1.6 billion yuan ($263.8 million) to 25 national seed-industry-related projects, encouraging businesses to breed 535 varieties of high-yield and disease-resistant plants and expanding the plantation of those fine varieties to 23.33 million hectares.

But many of China's breeding companies are still too small to lead the market, and most of the new breeding technologies remain at an experimental stage in universities or research laboratories, with their commercialization taking at least 10 to 15 years, according to earlier media reports.