The Asian Seed Congress was held in Sanya, Hainan from Dec. 2-6, 2024. A decade after the Congress was first held in China, it has now returned to the country for a second time, bringing the attention of the domestic and international seed industry to Sanya.

Sanya has hosted the China Seed (Nanfan Agricultural Silicon Valley) Congress, the International Seed Industry Scientists Conference, and the Asian Seed Congress. Why is Sanya so popular?

“Star” innovative scientific and technological seed industry products on display in the 2024 Asian Seed Congress exhibition pavilion attracted the attention of many international business representatives. (Photo: Wang Chenglong / Hainan Daily)

Industry reps learn about products on display in the exhibition area. (Photo: Sha Xiaofeng / Hinews)

Winter is on the way and it’s getting chilly in north China, but in tropical Sanya the weather is warm and scenes of plentiful agricultural harvests abound.

Seeds are the ‘microchips’ of the agricultural industry. Sanya, located at 18 degrees North latitude, offers excellent light and temperature conditions, accelerating the propagation of seeds and making this an excellent place for the development of new and improved seed varieties. Since the publication of the National Nanfan Silicon Valley Development Plan (2023 - 2030), Sanya has taken full advantage of the Hainan FTP policies, attracted many talented scientific researchers and companies, and brought in a number of high-level scientific research institutes and universities.

In order to further the development of the seed industry and the ‘Nanfan Silicon Valley’, Sanya is actively exploring a variety of fields, including using green manure to improve soil quality, rotating crops and manure in rice paddies, reducing barriers to the continuous cultivation of fruits and vegetables, and eliminating plant diseases and pests in order to continue improving soil fertility, aiding in the development of the agricultural industry.

At the same time, Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City is China’s first seed industry institute to offer the ‘CRO Mode’ (the agricultural industry R&D outsourcing service mode), creating a unique agricultural industry technology service industry value chain.

Thanks to the support of the Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, Sanya is developing an innovative science and technology industry system incorporating national-level research institutes, world-class higher education institutes, and Hainan Province research institutes. By the end of the first half of 2024, the Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City had secured 1,421 patents for seed and agriculture industry related inventions and utility models, as well as signed 129 contracts worth a total of 142 million yuan ($19.49 million) based on transformative achievements in the science and technology industry.

Asian Seed Congress attendees carry out discussions on site. (Photo: Wang Chenlong / Hainan Daily)

Sanya’s talented, intelligent research teams and technological advantages lend a hand to the development of specialty countryside industries and play a role in bringing about transformative research achievements, creating new rural development momentum. Now, Sanya’s four-member ‘Academician Village Head’ team and the 195-member ‘Doctoral Village Head’ teams serve all the city’s village areas, creating village development plans to assist in solving rural industry development dilemmas.

Through the combination of comprehensive green prevention and control technologies such as physical and biological prevention and control as well as plant based immunity, they carry out technical demonstrations that not only shorten harvest periods but also improve crop quality. In addition, the teams have brought new, colorful varieties of passion fruit, asparagus, and other specialty crops into villages and developed new local industries.

Sanya is also positioned as a center for ‘new, special, and excellent’ agricultural products, achieving great results in cultivating and propagating high quality tropical fruit and vegetable varieties this year. From popular new hybrid rice and high-yield corn varieties to pest resistant cotton and colorful chrysanthemums to cherry and strawberry flavored tomatoes, a wide variety of ‘new, special, and excellent’ agricultural products are developed and approved here, then sent across the nation to spring up and bring new life to different parts of China.

Exhibitors hold in-depth product discussions at the Asian Seed Congress exhibition hall. (Photo: Wang Chenglong / Hainan Daily)

Products on display at the Congress. (Photo: Sha Xiaogeng / Hinews)

In recent years, thanks to close cooperation between private companies, scientific research institutes, professional organizations, and ASEAN partners, Sanya has overcome industry bottlenecks such as the complexity of durian cultivation technology and the difficulty of quality control.

Thanks to favorable policies and excellent climate conditions, the Hainan Youqi Agriculture Company has successfully cultivated durian in Sanya’s Yucai Ecological Zone. “We have also independently developed a bio-organic fertilizer suited to Hainan durian that is effective in improving the flavor and quality of the fruit.” Du Baizhong, president of the Hainan Durian Association and GM of the Hainan Youqi Agriculture Company revealed that the company has a 6.6 km. large durian agricultural base, and that varieties such as Golden Pillow and Cat Mountain King are popular on the market.

Durian is far from the only crop in town. After years of research, Sanya set up a ‘new, special, and excellent’ tropical fruit and vegetable seed variety resource garden in the Sanya Tropical Agricultural Academy Yacheng Base, where 260 varieties of ‘new, special, and excellent’ seed varieties of agricultural products grown at the local latitude such as ice cream durian, mango pineapple, and rose sugar apples are collected and preserved, promoting the transformation and overall improvement of the Sanya tropical fruit industry.