A pineapple is behind the “agricultural chip war”, and the “golden diamond pineapple” cultivated in Taiwan has taken root in China.
One chip can change the world, one seed can turn the world’s dinner table, the Chinese media described the seed as a “chip”, a pineapple let the Chinese Communist Party‘s “agricultural chip war” revealed.
China canceled the order of Taiwan pineapple (Taiwan called pineapple), the variety of rights also followed the fallout, this Time was withdrawn from the order of the “Golden Diamond pineapple” (Tannon 17) is Taiwan’s highest market share of varieties, currently in Guangdong, Hainan and Fujian and other places planted, mass production. According to the survey information released by the Taiwan Agricultural Committee on March 9, China is currently using Taiwan-bred pineapple varieties including Tainan No. 4, Tainan No. 11, Tainan No. 16, and Tainan No. 17.
Chinese fields grow out of Taiwan’s gene pool
Taiwan’s important agricultural varieties and technologies have flowed into China, with the town of Yongfu in Fujian even creating “China’s Alishan”.
It is not a new thing to see Taiwanese pineapples growing out of Chinese fields. Taiwan is known as the “Silicon Valley of Agriculture” and a large number of seeds have been exported to China to take root. “Taiwan’s important crops and good varieties are almost all taken by China.” Chen Shih-hsiung, former president of Taiwan Mingdao University and professor emeritus at South China University, said, “More than a decade ago, Fujian province alone imported more than 2,500 varieties and more than 800 items of expertise from Taiwan.”
Chen Shih-hsiung topped the title of doctor of agriculture, physically go down to the field as an organic farmer, he was invited to participate in the Beijing Science and Technology Forum, “Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences officials said so, we can now harvest grapes twice a year, technology learned from Taiwan; Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences officials also said that we now have a very good variety of forage, can make cattle and sheep lactation increased by 40%, the variety from Taiwan .” Chen Shixiong realized that China’s comprehensive “harvest”, not only Taiwan’s famous pineapple, mango, Sakka, pineapple Sakka, black pearl lotus, perfume lotus, red flesh dragon fruit, poppy peach, tea, etc., “even pasture also went to (China).”
China received Taiwan’s agricultural chips, overwhelmingly like “cut leeks”. Taiwan University Department of Agronomy Professor Emeritus Kuo Huaren with “countless” to describe, “to Guangdong’s phalaenopsis, at least 80% is Taiwan varieties, Yunnan has a Taiwan group in the local investment, 80% of Kunming’s Oriental lilies are brought to this Taiwan group. ” He took stock of the flower varieties that have moved westward, and there has been a major exodus of key agricultural technologies, “Guangxi has now become the largest grape-producing region in mainland China after the introduction of Taiwan’s technology of harvesting grapes twice a year.”
The birth of a seed is a long road, Guo Huaren Life into seed research, teaching seeds in Taiwan University for more than 30 years, he took the traditional breeding as an example, “annual crops take 7, 8 years, fruit trees, then it may take more than 10 years, crossbreeding is one of the breeding methods, the two varieties with different characteristics to cross, the selection of generations in the field The breeding method is to cross two varieties with different characteristics and select them in the field from generation to generation until the characteristics of the variety are fixed.”
Chen Shixiong pointed out that the golden diamond pineapple from the “father of Taiwan pineapple” Zhang Qingqin’s hand, he spent most of his life buried in cultivating pineapple varieties, from cross-pollination to seedling selection, after a long time to eliminate, test, new varieties can come out. China blocked Taiwan pineapple, the old professor immediately handmade “love Taiwan anti-central pineapple dry”, he said with great emphasis, “we often say TSMC (semiconductor company) is the protection of the sacred mountain, agriculture is another Taiwan’s protection of the sacred mountain, every country’s agriculture is their protection of the sacred mountain. “
The Conspiracy of Agricultural Benefit Policy for Taiwan
China’s encouragement of Taiwan farmers to move westward is, in its bones, a conspiracy to upgrade Chinese agriculture.
The roots of this agricultural protector of the sacred mountain but little by little was hollowed out, Guo Huaren mentioned the past, “In 1987, the opening of Family visits and exchanges across the Taiwan Strait gradually thawed, however, my teacher said that long before that, Taiwan Sugarcane Research Institute bred a new variety of sugarcane, Taiwan has not yet begun to plant, the mainland side got the new seeds.”
In 2006, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and the State Taiwan Affairs Office approved the establishment of “Taiwan Farmers’ Entrepreneurship Park”, which has blossomed in various provinces and regions in China, among which “Fujian’s Zhangping Yongfu Taiwan Farmers’ Entrepreneurship Park” is even the “Alishan of China “In addition, the central government has also launched a variety of Taiwan-friendly policies to attract Taiwan’s best agricultural talents, varieties and technologies to land, with the intention of promoting the upgrading and transformation of China’s traditional agriculture.
Kuo Hua-ren pointed out that Taiwan Farmers’ Entrepreneurship Park then targeted farmers with special varieties or competition winners, and visited these farmers through various ways and initiatives, inviting them to visit China, or buying their varieties and technologies, or even inviting them to bring their varieties, technologies and capital to China for production, in addition to some retired Taiwanese agricultural officials, experts and scholars were also invited to go, becoming the varieties and technologies outflow pushers.
The oldest brother offered the sweetness of going west, Taiwanese farmers and investors quietly fell into the trap of “boiling frogs in warm water”. Chen Shixiong lamented that the board of a private university in Taiwan and China to cooperate, sending experts to the local guidance to plant grapes, grapefruit, until they learn, start production, the other party to raise capital requirements, no capital increase will be kicked out, such examples are numerous, “raise, set, kill” market model is not only in Taiwan, also happened in China Local.
When China swallowed the agrochemical seed giant
In recent years, China has been actively fostering seed companies in an attempt to become an “agricultural chip power”.
China’s seed industry is considered a strategic industry, and Shouguang, Shandong Province, is a representative vegetable seed trading center, “which used to be all foreign seeds, but in the past few years domestic seeds have basically chucked up.” Shouguang seed dealers answer questions from Chinese official media, despite China’s 2019 vegetable seeds of $224 million, accounting for more than half of seed imports, and China’s ambition to be among the “big agricultural chip countries” on display.
“China relies on imports of grain and vegetable seeds, and even seed pigs, and the proportion is quite high, so in recent years the Chinese government has actively promoted seed enterprises, of which Shandong Shouguang is an example.” Guo Huaren noted, “China has even entered the international arena, with the Beijing-based China National Chemical Corporation, which in 2017 acquired the multinational conglomerate Syngenta, a global giant in agrochemicals and seeds, and the merger equals a place for China in the transnational trade of seeds.”
This super M&A case quietly changed the global agricultural map, but also projected the “agriculture for the state of the essence of the seeds for agriculture” chip war core thinking. Guo Huaren said that the exchange of seeds in ancient times is a rare thing, but modern factors involved in international trade, seed war, so there are currently international regulations related to the sharing of benefits obtained from seeds, as well as intellectual property rights, variety rights laws, but there is such a legal design is not enough, but also in accordance with the law to administrative.
Although Taiwan and China signed the “Cross-Straits Intellectual Property Rights Protection Cooperation Agreement” in 2010, this agreement is difficult to effectively protect Taiwan’s agricultural varieties. The most crucial difference between these two versions lies in the “farmer’s exemption”, and the farmer’s exemption clause in China is applicable to all plant varieties, while only seven species in Taiwan The Chinese farmer’s exemption applies to all plant species, while only seven crops are applicable in Taiwan.
Farmer’s Exemption Opens the Back Door
Under the umbrella of the farmer’s exemption, the door is wide open for Chinese farmers.
“The so-called farmer’s exemption means that farmers buy seedlings with variety rights and then propagate them on their own to plant in their own fields. As long as they don’t sell seedlings, but sell harvested agricultural products, they won’t violate the law, which is the same as having no variety rights.” Guo Huaren explained, “So even though Taiwan’s new varieties apply for protection of Chinese variety rights, they can only prevent local seedlings from being trafficked, and farmers can plant them in large quantities as long as they claim to be Home-propagated seedlings, and Taiwanese breeders simply cannot ask for the rights money.”
The exemption clause opens the door to Chinese farmers’ convenience and inevitably leads to conspiracy theories. Guo Huaren pointed out that the new 1991 international convention had a grace period, and China applied to join the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) one year before the deadline, so domestic variety rights regulations could be based on the old 1978 convention, which was clearly a deliberate attempt to adopt a lenient exemption for farmers.
This agricultural chip crisis has also emerged in New Zealand, where the patented varieties of the well-known Zespri kiwi fruit (known as kiwi in China) company have been repeatedly stolen from fruit tree branches and planted in China, where the golden kiwi fruit has been illegally planted in China on an area of 4,000 hectares, while the planted area in New Zealand is about 7,500 hectares, and the illegal area in China has exceeded half of the local area.
“This is the same problem that Taiwan is facing, even if Zespri applies for the Chinese variety rights, the farmers’ exemption allows Chinese farmers to legally propagate and plant in their own fields.” Guo Huaren said, “Moreover, in China sometimes after politics is above the law, it has happened in the past that Taiwan seed companies put hybrid generation seeds, sent to China to apply for variety rights, the local seed companies do not know what method to obtain varieties, the lawsuit is useless.”
Japan also because of strawberry and grape varieties stolen to China for planting, recently amended the plant variety and seedling law, the new law provides that without the consent of the breeder, shall not be exported into, and the offender shall be held criminally responsible, is expected to be implemented in 2022. Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture also said it will study the seedling law to include criminal liability to curb the illegal export of plant varieties into the behavior.
Crisis on the world’s tables
China’s kiwis have been rumored to be using illegal bulking agents, and there are numerous problems with the use of drugs in agriculture.
A storm of agricultural safety is brewing as the Communist Party of China (CPC) takes the agricultural chips, step by step, to the world’s tables. Chinese farmers had rumors of illegal use of bulking agents in order to make kiwifruit fruit large, Chen Shixiong explained that this is a hormone (hormone), plant hormones can make the fruit larger, sweeter, or more flowers, fruiting rate increased, and is not good for human health, which also reflects the hidden dangers of Chinese agriculture.
“The problem of rural areas, farmers and agricultural production is the long-term hidden worry of Chinese agriculture.” Chen Shixiong points out the crux of the problem, he believes that Chinese farmers are generally uneducated and illiterate, and the abuse of agricultural situation is serious, and the Chinese government is concerned about the farmers’ movement, forbidding the establishment of farmers’ organizations such as farmers’ associations, and therefore more lack of agricultural technology promotion pipeline, coupled with relying on only cheap rural labor, and the scale of farmland is small, when the global economic recession, laid-off workers back to the time, the problem comes, China out of poverty is mainly to get rid of The problem will come when the global economic recession and the return of laid-off workers, and the main reason for China to get rid of poverty is to get rid of poor farmers.
As the battle for agricultural chips intensifies, Chen Shih-hsiung describes the series of crises as “the Chinese storm of Taiwan’s agriculture”, and the weakened international competitiveness of Taiwan’s agriculture is the first to emerge. In 1990, Taiwan was the 2nd largest importer of agricultural products from Japan, and in 2005, China replaced Taiwan as the 2nd largest importer of agricultural products, with Taiwan losing ground to 13th place.
Chen Shixiong pointed out that Chinese agricultural products are also “origin washing”, through Vietnam or a third country, back to Taiwan, and the Chinese market also appeared counterfeit Taiwan agricultural products, including Chihshang rice, turbid water rice, Yujing mango, frozen oolong tea, etc., poor quality agricultural products but labeled as Taiwan products, not only to destroy the image of Taiwan’s agricultural products, but also to disrupt the Taiwan The characteristics of China’s war wolves are not only shown in diplomacy, as long as they can eat, they will swallow you up.
Although China’s farmland can grow “cottage chips”, but also face the serious problem of seed degradation. Experts believe that breeding new technologies have to be each according to their ability, Taiwan’s competitive advantage in agriculture is the variety of research and development to push the new.
“Suppose every year we have a new breeding program to introduce new varieties with better characteristics than the old ones, even if they are taken by China, we have new varieties on hand.” Guo Huaren said, “It’s like chips and wafers, we always have the latest and the best, and we’re not afraid of Chinese counterfeits.”
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