The Seed Law was promulgated in 2015 and entered into force on January 1, 2016.

There are 94 articles in total.

The key points are as follows:

1.The governments shall take measures to strengthen law enforcement and supervision on seeds, and in accordance with the law, punish seed-related violations of laws that infringe upon farmers’ rights and interests.

2.The state has sovereignty over germ plasm resources. Any entity or individual that plans to provide germ plasm resources to overseas or cooperates with any overseas institution or individual in conducting research to utilize germ plasm resources, shall file an application with the government and submit the state benefit sharing plan.

3.No crop varieties that should have been examined for approval may be announced, popularized or sold.

4.The plant varieties in the national plant variety protection catalogue that are selected manually or improved from discovered wild plants, have novelty, specialty, consistency and stability and are appropriately named shall be granted the right to new varieties of plants by competent agriculture and forestry departments of the State Council, and the lawful rights and interests of owners of the right to new varieties of plants shall be protected.

5.Whoever engages in seed import or export shall, in addition to having the seed production and business operation license, obtain the seed import or export license in accordance with the relevant provisions of the state.

6.The variety selection, cultivation, experiments, approval and popularization of genetically modified plant varieties shall be subject to safety evaluation, and strict safety control measures shall be taken.