On July 27th, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs unveiled the first-ever list of crops subject to the Essential Derived Variety (EDV) system, initially including 10 species such as rice, wheat, and cotton.

This move marks the official implementation of the EDV system established by China's Seed Law, aiming to strengthen intellectual property protection within the seed industry.

According to Yang Haisheng, Deputy Director of the Seed Industry Management Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, an EDV is essentially a new variety bred by modifying and improving an existing original variety, differing only in a few traits.

"As the seed industry revitalization initiative deepens, China's seed sector is entering a new phase that relies more heavily on independent innovation and original creativity," Yang stated. "We need to enhance the plant variety protection system with stricter, more rational intellectual property mechanisms to incentivize original innovation and accelerate the development of breakthrough varieties."

The newly established EDV system requires that before commercializing an essential derived variety, the developer must obtain permission from the original variety rights holder and agree to share a portion of the profits. This respects the rights of original breeders and encourages them to invest more in foundational innovation.

Yang explained that the selection of the first 10 crops was based on three key considerations: urgent industry demand, strong genetic diversity among varieties, and the maturity of variety identification technologies. These 10 crops span five major categories—grains, cotton, oilseeds, vegetables, and fruits—offering broad coverage and strong representativeness.

As of the end of 2025, the total number of variety rights applications for these 10 crops reached 38,600, accounting for 35.5% of all agricultural plant variety rights applications in China.

To ensure the system's operability, the Ministry has also issued guidelines for determining essential derived varieties, including assessment criteria, threshold values, conditions for identification institutions, and established an expert database.

Moving forward, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs will consider factors such as China's national conditions, agricultural realities, industry needs, breeding capabilities, and technical conditions. It will gradually expand the scope of covered crops in accordance with the law, ultimately covering all plant genera and species in the agricultural plant variety protection list, thereby fostering broader original innovation in breeding.