On April 1, the 2023 China Seed Congress & Nanfan Agricultural Silicon Valley Forum kicked off in Sanya, Hainan, attracting over 3,000 representatives of the seed industry from all over the world.

The 2023 China Seed Congress and Nanfan Agricultural Silicon Valley Forum kicked off in Sanya, Hainan on April 1. [Photo: Xinhua]

“The National Modern Agricultural Development Zone in Sanya has a total of 1,887 varieties — including maize, rice, other grains, fruits, and vegetables — from 264 exhibitors on display this year, which were all developed over the past few years,” said Ai Yilun, General Manager of Hainan State Farms Investment Holdings Group Co., Ltd. 

A painting made from a wide variety of seeds displayed at the forum. [Photo / Wang Chenglong]

The abundance of sunlight and warm tropical temperatures have made the area around the city of Sanya a paradise for seed cultivation in China. In addition to those advantages, the development of the Hainan Free Trade Port over the past few years has also led to the establishment in the Sanya area of China’s “Nanfan Silicon Valley”, a scientific research and seed cultivation base with carefully planned land use and efficient services.

About 20,000 hectares of farm fields across the province have been zoned for “Nanfan” (a method of agriculture and seed selection of summer crops in south China after the normal harvest season for these crops has already passed in their original regions) scientific research, and seed cultivation. The zoned area has been brought into the development blueprint for the whole province as permanent basic farmland, which is supervised via the provincial Platform for Common Geospatial Information Services.

Over the past decades, about 70% of all newly developed agricultural varieties across China were created and grown in Hainan, which has produced an increasing variety of cotton & linen, oil-producing plants, tubers, fruits, vegetables, flowers, aquatic products, livestock, and poultry species.

The latest scientific products of China’s seed industry on display at the forum. [Photo / Wang Chenglong]

According to Sheng Yongjun, Executive Vice Mayor of Sanya, Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City is home to over 900 agricultural enterprises, including the China National Seed Group, Longping High-tech, the Da Bei Nong Group, the German company KWS (one of the world’s leading agricultural companies), and Dutch plant research company KeyGene.

Now, the China National Seed Group has relocated its headquarters to Sanya and is doing business in the city, while KWS has set up the city’s first foreign-funded agricultural scientific R&D center.

The past year also saw rapid development in the Yazhou Bay Seed Laboratory. “A sharing center for large-scale research facilities and a platform for the identification of germplasm resources have opened in the Laboratory, which boasts 20 member institutions including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences,” said Chen Fan, Executive Director of the Laboratory.

The Seed Laboratory is located in the Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City. [Photo: Hainan Daily]