The Communist Party’s top disciplinary body—after punishing graft in the military, domestic security organs and the financial sector—is now hunting officials, merchants and farmers it suspects of harvesting illicit profits from trade in grains and seeds. Tasked with being more forceful in safeguarding the nation’s “seed security,” authorities have investigated dozens of cases involving seed-related misconduct and, in several instances, imprisoned grain-sector officials on corruption charges…Officials say the goal is to stop the proliferation of fake and substandard seeds that could jeopardize food production and safety, while punishing officials, merchants and farmers who siphon agricultural subsidies and peddle low-grade seeds.

Xi has often highlighted food security as a national interest, calling on officials to ensure that China can fully nourish its 1.4 billion people. His demands have taken on greater urgency in recent years as he pushed to prepare his country for a potential confrontation with the U.S.—a major source of Chinese grain imports, including soybeans and corn—and forestall disruptions to food supplies for one of the world’s most populous nations…Today, Beijing sees the seed sector as one of several strategic industries where Western powers could flex their technological superiority to strangle a lagging China. Demonstrating his personal interest in this field, Xi has twice visited a seed-breeding base in the island province of Hainan that officials call the “Silicon Valley” of China’s seed industry.

China is the world’s largest grain producer, growing one-quarter of global supply on less than 10% of the world’s arable land. But its ability to feed its own people has slipped over recent decades by some estimates. ..Officials and state media have taken to comparing seeds to advanced semiconductor chips, a technology that China has pledged to master in its quest for a national renaissance…While China’s seed industry is strong enough to survive foreign strangulation, the country still falls behind in seed quality, according to the Farmers’ Daily, which recommended measures including “resolutely cracking down” on the trading of fake and mislabeled seeds, whereby officials and merchants defraud farmers with counterfeit or lower-grade goods marked as top-quality seeds….

Excerpts from China’s Corruption Hunters Target Produce Aisle in Push for Seed Security, WSJ, July 25, 2023