Beyond the seed there is a “pig chip” Chinese breeders rely on the introduction of 90%

The cold war between the United States and China in science and technology has exposed the “lack of core” disease of Chinese science and technology enterprises. A few days ago, the party media also disclosed that many of China’s seeds rely on imports, and then said that 90% of pig breeds are also imported from abroad and may face the problem of being “necked”.

The party media “China News Weekly” published an article on March 9, saying that China is the world’s largest pork consumer and pig producer, consuming an average of 700 million pigs per year, 90% of which have the pedigree of imported breeds.

The newspaper quoted experts as saying that China’s local pigs have shortcomings such as slow slaughter, high consumption and high pork fat, and must be improved. However, because breeding requires huge capital, and the current Chinese economy only pursues short and quick results, investment in breeding is seriously insufficient, resulting in 90% of piglets sold in the Chinese breeding market belonging to the offspring of foreign pigs.

According to the report, pig breeding is located at the top of the pig breeding pyramid system, so it is no exaggeration to call it “pig chip”. At present, pig breeding technology is mainly concentrated in the United States, Canada, France, Denmark and a few other countries, and the Chinese side faces a similar dilemma in this regard and the chip.

Previously, Xinhua News Agency’s publication “Half Moon” magazine also published an article that China’s seed industry independent innovation capacity is relatively weak, some varieties, fields and links overly dependent on foreign seeds, imports are subject to the control of others, hidden “broken seed” risk.

The article mentioned that in 2019, China’s vegetable seed imports of $224 million, accounting for more than half of the seed imports. Many vegetable seeds basically rely on foreign seed breeding. Some regions and varieties account for more than 80% of foreign seeds, and even almost all rely on imports.

In 2021, the CPC Central Committee Document No. 1 clearly proposed to fight the seed industry “turnaround”. In December last year, the CPC Central Committee Economic Work Conference, Xi Jinping also stressed the need to carry out seeds “neck” technology.