Seed Stock Management Improves

According to the master plan for 2009 agricultural products quality safety and legal execution of safe agricultural products, the Ministry of Agriculture has organised the rectifying management of aquatic seed stocks. So far, 2009 rectifying management of aquatic seed stocks has come to an end, with the goal achieved, and expected results gained.

According to the plan, fishery authorities at all levels have organized the census of local seed stock farms. The census shows that China has 15,306 aquatic seed stock farms. Among them, there are 449 farms for stock seeds and elite seeds at provincial level and above, 12,852 farms of the common , and 2005 farms for self-reproduction and self-use. Since this work, 53,149 legal workers have been sent out by fishery authorities at all levels and fishery legal administration agencies, with 15,171 seed stock farms inspected, accounting to 99 per cent of the total number.

Through the rectifying management, 2,592 farms have been required to do their correcting work and 252 farms that used illegal drugs have been punished, with 813,400 yuan (CNY) fined. The rate of positive samples in drug residue inspection has reached 100 per cent. The punishment for illegal production of aquatic seed stocks exerted great influence among seed stock producers. Combining with this work, fishery authorities at all levels have organised widespread campaign for laws and regulations as well as technical trainings. According to incomplete statistics, there have been 3,365 local media reports, with 1.25 million handouts; 3,702 training classes have been held, with 330,000 person-times trained; 713 training classes for fishery legal workers have been held, with 140,000 person-times trained.

Through this work, seed stock production and operation have been further improved, promoting the safety of seed stocks. At the same time, problems surfaced such as relatively lower level of management of this industry, some problems about the system for production permits, as well as some difficulties in legal execution. So the next step, MOA will continue to organise such rectifying work, focusing on the following areas: improving the system of production permits for seed stocks; scaling up sample inspection of drug residues; and increasing policy support to promote the development of seed stock industry.