Domestic seeds loaded "foreign" suspected of violations

Italian lettuce, Israeli tomatoes, Japanese melons, and eye-catching seeds have seemed to have captured half of China's seed market. However, after carefully examining the packaging of these seeds, it was found that these seeds, labeled "Italy" and "Israel" with the largest size, range from breeding to production and sales. All of them are in China, and they are truly domestic seeds.

Recently, the Southern Rural News reporter visited the vegetable wholesale markets across Guangdong and discovered that a large number of domestic seeds have been added to the names of foreign countries or Hong Kong and Taiwan in the name of the varieties. Some of the seeds have also been marked in Japanese and English on the packaging, and they have deliberately misled the purchase of farmers.

傍 Foreign names posing as foreign species

“Most farmers believe that the level of foreign breeding is higher than that of the domestic market. The foreign name is printed on the seed packaging. Now everyone claims that their seeds are foreign, lettuce is all Italian, and tomatoes are all written in Israel. A seed distributor introduced the reporter to the Southern Rural Newspaper.

It is in order to cater for the preference of growers for foreign seeds. Production companies generally add foreign names to their names, which is the first type of “false foreign species”.

The Southern Rural Daily reporter saw a tomato variety named “Israel (928) Duracell” in a seed shop in Dali, where “Israel” was singled out in three lines and the three words were red, green and blue respectively. The color is highlighted. In the characteristic characteristics, it states: "This species is early maturing, introduced by Israel..." However, the column of origin of this variety is marked "Guangdong" and it is entirely domestically produced. There are also four "Israeli tomato" varieties in the store, which are also domestic seeds.

Similar to this is the name “Roman Italy Bolting Lettuce”, which also highlights “Rome Italy” with its largest font size and prominent colors. In fact, Rome is the capital of Italy, only "Rome of Italy" and not "Rome of Italy." The seed company wants to have a name in the ocean, but it does not even have a clear relationship.

The second type of "fake foreign species" is to wear dresses for foreign seeds and logos. The reporter from the Southern Rural Daily News purchased a seed from the Jiangxi Fuxin Seed Co., Ltd. in the seed market to produce the “Japanese Sweet Pod” hybrid melon seed. The front part of the packaging was marked in Japanese with the name of the variety and “appropriate varieties suitable for open cultivation”. And so on, the cherry blossom pattern and "Sakura の flower" appear in the middle of the package. Looking at the back of the package, we found that the origin of the variety is Jiangxi, and the implementation of seed quality is also China's national standard.

The third type of "fake foreign species" is direct counterfeiting. A reporter from the Southern Rural Daily News found a pack of “Taiwan Silver Melon” seeds, which were produced by Taiwan’s Shenfeng Seedlings Co., Ltd., and its “origin” is indicated as “Taiwan”. However, there are neither seed business license nor seed quarantine certificates required for domestic seeds, nor relevant import approval documents and plant quarantine certificate numbers for imported seeds. At the same time, the packaging texts are all in simplified Chinese. The above characteristics show that the seed is obviously not a legitimate imported seed.

There are doubts about "blood relations"

Huang Jinhong, president of the Guangzhou Seed Chamber of Commerce, told the reporter of the Southern Rural Daily that the situation of adding foreign names to the names of the varieties is widespread in Guangdong and even the country’s vegetable seed production enterprises. “In the industry, it is generally believed that there is no problem if the quality of the seed is met and the relevant countries and regions do not raise objections. In fact, there have been no cases of such cases beforehand.”

A veteran of the vegetable seed industry believes that in the current vegetable seed industry, “Italian lettuce” and “Israeli tomato” are common names, representing a certain type of vegetable that “has foreign origin”.

Regarding this classification of alien relations between geographical names, the researcher of the Vegetable Research Institute of the Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Li Zhenxing, believes that hard-tomatos are commonly referred to as Israeli tomatoes in the market, and the related seed names are also added to the Israeli word. The view is actually wrong. Hard-fruited tomatoes were first successfully bred in Israel, and some well-known varieties emerged. However, some European countries and China have also bred hard-fruited tomatoes with unique parents. So hard fruit type tomatoes do not necessarily have Israeli descent. “Israeli tomato varieties sold well in the early years. Now that the relevant companies are selling Israeli brands for high prices, there is no reason.”

On the other hand, the random labeling of vegetable seeds by foreign names also affects the sales of regular imported seeds. Huang Xin, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Xingtian Seed Co., Ltd. introduced that Xingtian has represented a number of foreign seed brands in China. The inclusion of names of foreign countries in the names of a large number of domestically produced vegetable varieties has, to some extent, impacted the seeds that were actually imported, and affected their sales in some regions. Huang Xi reminded growers: "To determine whether or not to really import seeds, we must carefully look at the origin of the seed and the relevant approval number, not to be misled by the foreign names on the package."

Packaging violations are common

In addition to misleading consumers, "false ocean seeds" may also be suspected of violating relevant national standards.

According to the "General Rules for Crop Seeds Labeling" (GB20464-2006), which was implemented on November 1, 2006, the following types of names should not be included in the labeling of the varieties: they should be named after the country's name; the names of the administrative divisions above the county level or Names of foreign names known to the public; exaggerated propaganda and deceptive. The above-mentioned varieties with the names of countries and regions added to the product name clearly violate this rule.

For labeling foreign languages ​​on packages, the national standard also has clear rules. "The text used in the markup shall be Chinese, except for the registered trademark, use the standardized Chinese characters published by the National Language and Text Work Committee. Chinese pinyin or other words that have a close correspondence may be used at the same time, but the font should be smaller than the corresponding Chinese. Except for the production of imported seeds. Outside the name and address of the business, foreign languages ​​that do not correspond to Chinese should not be marked."

Taking the Japanese Sweet Po variety as an example, there is no problem with the Japanese translation of the package labeling that corresponds strictly to the product name, but its size is the same size as Chinese, and it is a violation. In the Japanese section, "premature varieties suitable for open cultivation" do not have strict Chinese correspondence on the packaging, and they are also illegally marked.