Capturing the seed: China’s agribusiness expansion at home and abroad

While the Chinese seed market hits a staggering US$19.1 billion, for over twenty years the Asian giant has been a net grain importer, relying mainly on the US, Australia, Ukraine and Brazil. Only 2% of seed companies in China have the facilities for seed breeding, production, and marketing.[1] [2] China’s top ten seed companies hold only 13.8% market share. This underdeveloped domestic seed breeding capacity has rightly been identified by authorities as a choke point in the country’s food security strategy.

In 2021 -even before the war in Ukraine and President Donald Trump’s out-and-out trade wars further exposed the nation’s seed vulnerability- the Chinese government launched the “Seed Industry Revitalisation Action Plan”, dubbing seeds the microchips of agriculture.

With China’s ever intensifying geopolitical tensions, China is racing to restructure its seed sector to emulate its rival's model and slash reliance on imports. Less than five years since the national seed plan’s inception, the rapid growth of the sector is said to have boosted China’s self-reliance rate in domestic vegetable seeds production to 75%.[3]

This shift is mobilising substantial capital and infrastructure to expand the domestic and international reach of Chinese seed companies through a two-pronged strategy. On the technology front, China is betting on accelerated deployment of GM seeds, gene editing and AI-driven breeding to increase domestic grain production. Simultaneously, it is seeking to expand overseas seed markets, ensuring that grains and crops imported back into China are grown from Chinese-developed seeds, thereby creating a closed-loop supply chain that strengthens its control over the food supply.[4]

To support a biotech-focused seed industry, the Chinese government rolled out a wide range of measures: from shared national research facilities to prioritised land use for seeds production and accelerated germplasm access for companies. Rather than providing support evenly across thousands of existing local seed companies, the state chooses to boost a few to consolidate the seed sector, crafting a new model in sourcing and controlling breeding resources.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs took 69 exemplary national companies and created a “national crop seed team”, granting them privileged access to capital and other resources. The core architecture of this new programme is largely defined by a cohort of giant state-owned seed industries: CITIC-Longping, Sinochem-Syngenta, and the State Development and Investment Corporation (SDIC), a state capital investment company.[5]

Among them, nine of CITIC's subsidiaries, led by Longping, were designated as model enterprises, while the SDIC owned State Development Seed Technology Group, secured seven spots on the list. Collectively, these firms now hold over 100 patents for biotech breeding technologies.

This increased association between public institutions and seed technology companies reflects a significant reconfiguration of the financial structure underpinning China's agricultural future. In December 2024, Longping Hi-Tech transferred a nearly 11% stake in Longping Biotechnology, a Hainan-based subsidiary specialising in genetically modified crop development, to the Central Enterprise Rural Industry Investment Fund, which is managed by SDIC, for $53 million. This transaction has increased SDIC's share to almost 45%. [6] By acquiring strategic stakes in major seed companies like Guofeng Biotechnology and Dabeinong, as well as securing a controlling interest in Fengle Seed Industry -the country’s first publicly listed seed company- these state-backed investors have rapidly expanded their influence over the seed biotech sector within just a few years.

In parallel with industry consolidation, China has recently introduced a stricter legal framework to protect commercial breeders’ rights. The Seed Law amendment in December 2021 formally included a broader scope of plant variety protections aligned with UPOV 1991, called the Essential Derived Varieties (EDV) system. The EDV system prevents any new seed variety that is considered to inherit most of its genes from a protected variety from being freely distributed without permission from the owner of the initial protected variety. It enables companies to continue monopolising and making profits from a broad range of breeding outcomes while potentially preventing farmers from developing new seed varieties. This move was followed in April 2025 by a set of regulations on the Protection of New Plant Varieties (PVP), the first comprehensive overhaul since 2014, which explicitly aligns regulations with the new seed law (EDV system).[9]

In October 2025, the Chinese delegation successfully institutionalised the use of the Chinese language at UPOV's annual meetings in Geneva.[10] This ongoing convergence reflects China’s deepening integration into the UPOV regime, driving more vigorous enforcement of seed intellectual property rights as part of the country’s seed industry reform. This tightening of the Seed Law and PVP regulations effectively shifts control of the seeds from farmers to corporate boardrooms, dominated by companies like SDIC and Longping.

The next key pillar for China in building a biotechnology-driven seed industry is strengthening the germplasm supply for commercial breeding. With the launch of the 2021 Revitalisation Action Plan, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs started an extensive national agricultural germplasm resources census. This three-year process, surveyed 625,000 villages to collect over 530,000 new germplasm samples. Three-hundred thirty-two counties were listed for the first time in national germplasm survey records, and -most remarkable- 87.5% of the germplasms collected was from local varieties grown by farmers for generations.[11]

More than half a million seed samples have so far been taken from farmers' fields to a newly established national seed bank in Beijing, with over 2 million germplasm samples. In partnerships with the tech giant Tencent, a digital database of crop genetic resources is being developed to support breeders’ access to this multiplied germplasm pool and AI seed breeding.[12] [13]

Currently, around 80% of the country’s seed breeding capacity remains in the hands of scientific research institutions. The government sees this as a roadblock to the seed sector’s revival, and has called for stronger partnership between public breeders and the private seed sector.[14] Some measures taken so far include the reform of government research funding mechanism for public-private collaboration, and the setting up of committees for seed breeding to set breeding priorities. As a result, seed companies are gaining unprecedented influence over the direction of national breeding programmes, deliberately supported by mechanisms to accelerate the flow of germplasm resources from public institutes to private ones.[15]

When handing over their seeds to the national germplasm collection, farmers were anticipating policies that would support their seed saving practices, instead the reality took a different turn. Besides expanding its germplasm collection primarily for the benefit of private seed companies, Chinese authorities also moved to commercialise genetically modified (GM) crops. Since 2022, 64 new GM maize and 17 GM soybean varieties have been approved for cultivation across eight provinces, covering 660,000 hectares. These new GM seeds are mainly insecticidal and herbicide resistance crops, similar to first-generation GMOs, which did so much to entrench industrial agriculture’s heavy use of agrotoxins and other petrochemicals. This expansion of genetically modified crops in China has been driven by over 40 companies licensed to market GM seeds, including agricultural conglomerates like Dabeinong, Syngenta, Longping, and China Seeds. [16] [17] [18]

Despite reports from farmers that these new GM maize and soybean varieties produced 20% less yield, the state continues to promote the use of GM seeds by providing subsidies for farmers who are willing to use these seeds and setting up field demonstration stations across the country.[19] In Hebei, a major maize producing province, for instance, the government offers subsidies worth US$ 660 per hectare to farmers who grow GM soybean and maize. As these corporations secure preferential access to government projects and dominate the licensing of GM seeds, farmers find themselves in an increasingly precarious position. Their saved seeds are now threatened not only by policy changes but also by the genetic contamination from GM crops being pushed onto their land.

The rapid growth of China’s GM seed industry has also rattled foreign seed companies. In 2023, KWS Saat, a prominent German seed producer, announced the sale of its Chinese maize business, citing fears that the laid-back GMO regulations would render its conventional seed traits uncompetitive. Kenfeng-KWS Seed was founded as a joint venture in 2014 as KWS Saat bet on the Chinese maize market opening up to foreign companies. With the sale, KWS Saat was largely out of the Chinese market. The remaining company was renamed Kenfeng (Beijing) Seed, with the state owned Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co. now holding 51% majority shares and the remaining 49% held by the private equity fund China Agricultural Reclamation Industry Development Fund.[20] [21]

Beyond its focus on domestic seed revival, China harbours broader ambitions to expand its influence in the global seed market.

With China now importing food from around the world, the country believes it is lagging behind Western seed companies in acquiring overseas germplasm, which would help it develop crop varieties adapted to growing conditions in different countries. Chinese companies currently source only 15% of their germplasm from abroad, compared with 75% for their US-based counterparts.[22]

Compounding this, China's hybrid seed market has been facing severe overcapacity under the policy push. In 2025, the supply-to-demand ratio for hybrid maize and rice seeds reached 175% and 125% respectively. The surge in growth is outpacing actual farmer demand, creating a volatile environment that gradually squeezes out small seed traders and forces companies to seek overseas outlets to absorb the surplus. [23]

Back in 2017, CITIC Group acquired a part of Dow AgroSciences’ maize seed business in Brazil for US$ 1,000 million. That same year, Longping purchased an additional 36% stake in Dow's Brazilian maize operation for US$ 400 million. The expansion continued into 2023, when Longping invested another $100 million to enlarge its presence in Brazil.[26]

To further penetrate distribution networks across Latin America, Morgan, Longping’s hybrid seed brand, formed a partnership with Lavoro, the largest agricultural inputs distributor in Brazil. Leveraging Lavoro’s extensive geographic reach, Longping’s seed empire has made inroads into Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Uruguay. Backed by CITIC Agri Fund, in a decade, Longping has become the regional hub for expanding Chinese seed brands throughout Latin America, a market that used to be dominated by the US and German seed giants like Corteva and Bayer.

Today, Longping High Tech holds stakes in 72 companies spanning the domestic and international seed market (see table).[27] The global presence enables Longping to produce tailored seed trades across geographic zones. In Tanzania, for example, Longping set up a new company called Longping Agriscience Tanzania which sells soybean, maize and sorghum seeds produced in Brazil specialised for the Tanzanian market.[28] Another subsidiary, Hunan Longping Hi-tech Africa Agricultural Development Co., oversees a broader seed business across Africa, including Madagascar, Nigeria, Zambia and Ethiopia.[29]

Through this outward expansion, China attempts to secure full control of its grain supply chains while simultaneously acquiring foreign technology and germplasm to meet its global seed market ambition. By 2025, Longping had cumulatively collected over 8,000 maize germplasm resources from North and South America. The company’s revenue from the overseas seeds market has climbed to 48%.[30]

In contrast to recent Chinese industry expansion in the Latin American region, which is often dominated by state owned companies like COFCO and Longping, the geographical and cultural proximity of Southeast Asia has long been attractive to Chinese agribusiness of varying scales, weaving an agribusiness network that exports rice, fruits, seafood, and other perishable produce to meet China's growing demand.

Backed by the flagship programmes Belt and Road Initiative and the China-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement, the first Fish and Rice Corridor project was launched in 2025 in Kampong Chhnang Province of Cambodia. Led by Forward Cam International Investment Co., a subsidiary of Guangxi based Forward Agricultural Investment Co., the project is building a 70-hectare modern rice industry cooperation zone in the province. Here, hybrid rice seeds imported from South China will be cultivated, establishing a demonstration model for the wider area around the Tonle Sap Lake. The rice harvest and local fishery products that are produced under the Fish and Rice Corridor project will be exported to China via a cold chain railway connecting Southeast Asia to Yunnan province in Southwest China.[32]

As part of the Mekong River system, the Tonle Sap Lake and its surrounding floodplains are Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake ecosystem, contributing to 60% of Cambodia's inland fisheries production. The large quantities of chemicals used in hybrid rice production along with pollution from industrial aquaculture, have already raised concerns among local communities around Anhchanh Rong in Kampong Chhnang province.[33]

In Myanmar, the Guangxi government, in partnership with several Chinese and Myanmar companies, jointly established the China (Guangxi) Myanmar Agricultural Science and Technology Demonstration Base and the China Myanmar Crop Variety Experiment Station in Naypyidaw to promote crop varieties between the two countries. Guangxi Haokay Agricultural Biotechnology Co., one of the leading companies involved, has introduced 39 crop varieties from Myanmar to Guangxi to promote breeding programmes.[34]

To seize the growing seed trade market across Southeast Asia, Chinese authorities convened a meeting in March 2025 to accelerate the implementation of the South China Seed Silicon Valley Construction Plan in Hainan, the country’s southernmost province.[35] Under the Hainan Free Trade Port regime, the provincial government is authorised to approve international seed trade licenses through a fast track quarantine mechanism. To this end, the Hainan Free Trade Port Intellectual Property Court holds exclusive jurisdiction over disputes concerning plant variety rights, aligning its legal framework with UPOV 1991. As of now, Hainan has over 2,800 domestic and international seed companies registered there hunting for regional market opportunities, and in the process driving a trade value exceeding US$1.7 billion in 2023.[36]

Over the past decade, China’s global food strategy has turned large swathes of land in Latin America, Africa and Asia into grain producing zones aimed at meeting surging domestic demand. The Seed Revitalisation agenda extends this footprint further, transforming these regions into increasingly dependent markets where Chinese agribusinesses gain control over the seeds used in export-oriented production to China.

These dual strategies, evidenced by expanding corporate profits while pushing millions of farmers and other rural communities under the thumb of agribusiness and tech giants, are increasingly undermining farmers' seed sovereignty, in and outside China.

At home, countless generations of Chinese farmers have been the quiet custodians of the country’s agricultural biodiversity. Yet, even though most of the seeds commercialised were originally collected from their fields and villages, these same farmers are seeing their livelihoods threatened and their sovereignty reduced.

On the ground, a growing wave of farmer led initiatives dedicated to safeguarding farmers’ seeds stands to revive local biodiversity. Parallel to the government’s Seed Revitalisation programme that relies on agribusiness, across the country, small farmers, indigenous communities, social organisations and consumer groups are pushing back by building mutual support networks to take control of their food systems and to reclaim autonomy over seeds.[37] These are the kinds of efforts that merit far greater support.

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[33] GRAIN field visit in Aug 2024.

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