Zhongnongfa Seed Industry Group Co Ltd

This year's autumn farming season has seen more high-end smart agricultural machinery products put into frontline use, with accelerated industrial application of grain combine harvesters with an 18-kilogram-per-second feed rate and plant protection drones with an 85-kilogram payload. On October 8, the CSI Agriculture Thematic Index rose 0.35%, with constituent stocks including Zhongnongfa Seed, Shennong Seed, and Hainan Rubber leading gains; the underlying index of Agricultural ETF Tianhong rose 0.59%, with turnover exceeding 670,000 yuan, and net inflows of nearly 50 million yuan over the past week as of September 30. Sinolink Securities noted that China continues to promote the revitalization of the seed industry and boost output by raising grain yields per unit area. Global weather disruptions may cause some decline in crop production. At present, the planting sector's prosperity has bottomed out and stabilized, and grain prices have begun to rise. If a substantial reduction in grain output occurs, the prosperity of the planting industry chain is expected to improve.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on July 27 released the first implementation catalogue for the agricultural plant Essentially Derived Variety system, bringing 10 crops—rice, wheat, cotton, rapeseed, peanut, Chinese cabbage, pepper, millet, broad bean, and peach—under the EDV system. The system requires that essentially derived varieties obtain permission from the original variety rights holder and share benefits before commercial promotion, aiming to incentivize original breeding innovation. Liu Lihua, director of the Seed Industry Management Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said this is an important institutional innovation in the field of seed intellectual property, and other crops will be included in due course after a comprehensive assessment of the first catalogue's implementation. The national joint breeding research group has previously trialed the EDV system at over 200 institutions, agreeing that original variety rights holders receive no less than 15 percent of the benefits from the commercial promotion of essentially derived varieties, with no disputes reported so far.