Seeds should not be forced on villagers

RECENT REPORTS REVEAL THAT THOUSANDS of rural families in Anhui province suffered from a heavy decline in rice output or even no yield at all after using "Liangyou 0293" seeds provided by Longping Hightech company last October, with some of the victims blaming the company for false advertisements and concealing information about the defects in their seeds. Longping Hightech said that weather conditions and rice blast disease caused the losses. Comments:

The current regulation on the use of seeds has a giant loophole. According to the regulation, the departments and agencies that grant market entrance approval to a kind of seed and decide where to test and use them are not responsible for possible losses; therefore farmers often have to use seeds against their will but suffer the losses themselves.

cb.com.cn, April 9