Counterfeits, theft of intellectual property, and unlicensed sales still hold back the revitalization of China's seed and animal breeding industries. An official warning against misbehavior in its seed industry last month tacitly acknowledges that the industry is still riddled with fake seeds and stolen intellectual property despite decades of exposés and crackdowns.
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| An expose of counterfeit corn seed in a Hebei Province market was featured on Chinese State TV in 2017. |
China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs released a list of 6 cases of illegal activities by seed and breeding companies on October 19, 2026. The cases, along with investigations and punishments, were highlighted as a warning to criminals and as a guide for local authorities to crack down on fraud, substandard products, and abuse of property rights in the seed industry.
The cases included:
- a seed dealer in Chongqing passing off substandard rice seeds as branded seeds.
- a dealer in Gansu Province selling onion seeds that failed to grow onions because they were actually scallion seeds.
- a company in Hunan Province contracted to propagate hybrid rice seeds for a rice breeding company produced additional seeds on the side which were illegally sold under the breeder's brand name.
- a dealer in Inner Mongolia submitted false materials to file for approval of sunflower seeds that had been stolen from a research institute in Xinjiang.
- a local institute in Guangdong Province exported cucumber, lettuce and lettuce seeds without a government license by mailing them to Nepal falsely labeled as plastic granules
- a livestock company in Shandong Province sold piglets without a license, including batches that died of African swine fever.
Each case was small and perpetrators were obscure seed dealers, growers, and local research institutes, chosen carefully to avoid tarnishing the reputation of big national champion seed companies and to avoid any inference that these are widespread systemic problems (unlike a crackdown 15 years ago that complained the market was flooded with counterfeit seeds). The article did not cite any cases of Chinese companies stealing seeds from multinational companies or foreign countries.
The case regarding illegal seed export revealed China's nationalistic concern about "risk of national germplasm loss" (种质资源流失风险) that keeps foreign seed producers under tight control if they can operate at all in China and prevents any meaningful exchange of germ plasm with other countries -- despite China's promises to share its seeds.
The case of unlicensed piglet sales revealed that African swine fever was still circulating in China's swine herd as recently as 2025, although the article hastened to report that no positive ASF samples were found in subsequent investigations of the perpetrator.
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