China food security: vow to boost 2022 soybean output sets stage for leap in GM seed tech
- China’s top leadership wants to improve seeds and per unit yield in its bid to secure domestic grain supply
- To boost self-sufficiency, China’s seed industry is facing a new round of reshuffling and industrial concentration
China’s efforts to lift domestic production of soybeans and other oil crops could accelerate the approval of genetically modified (GM) seeds and shake up the seed industry, analysts said.
At the weekend’s central rural work conference, China’s top leadership pledged to keep people’s rice bowls filled with domestic grain, setting a 2022 production target at least equivalent to this year’s 650 million metric tonnes.
“The general consideration next year is to stabilise domestic grain supplies and corn output, while expanding soybean and oil crop production,” agriculture minister Tang Renjian said in an interview with the official Economic Daily on Monday.
The Chinese government will extend corn-soybean strip intercropping, which utilises farmland most efficiently and can facilitate mechanisation. But the biggest growth potential will be from the improvement of seeds and per unit yield, he said.
“There are still relatively large gaps with developed countries in terms of per unit yield of corn, soybeans and other varieties.”