The ground-breaking ceremony of the Yuelu Mountain Laboratory construction project was held in Changsha on the morning of March 7. Zhu Guoxian, deputy secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, attended the ceremony and announced the start of the project. Chen Fei, vice governor of Hunan Province, addressed the ceremony.

Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering including Yin Yulong, Zou Xuexiao, Liu Shaojun, Liu Zhonghua, Bai Lianyang, Shan Yang, and Wu Yiqiang attended.

Yuelu Mountain Laboratory, following the standard of a national laboratory, will be built into a world-class seed industry laboratory in China, a sci-tech research institute for biological breeding, an innovation center for key core technologies in seed industry, a cultivation center for major strategic varieties, and a high-level talent pool for seed industry innovation.

It will be constructed based on the general idea of “12356”. “1” refers to building a laboratory headquarters. “2” refers to coordinating two fields of planting and breeding. “3” refers to three seed industries of animal, botany, and microorganism. “5” refers to five areas and five modes of domestication, seed selection, hybrid breeding, molecular breeding, and design breeding. “6” refers to six tasks of security, development, variety, breeding, promotion, and industrialization.

Headquartered in Changsha, Yuelu Mountain Laboratory will focus on building four areas—the Hunan Agricultural University-Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences Area; Longping Area; Central South University of Forestry and Technology-Hunan Academy of Forestry Area; and, Yuelu Mountain University Town Area.

The mode of “headquarters + base + network” will be adopted to construct a seed industry sci-tech innovation system that drives the development of the country. 

Chen Fei said that seed industry innovation is of great significance to promoting rural revitalization in all aspects, constantly meeting people’s desire for a better life, and building a modern socialist China. Yuelu Mountain Laboratory is a landmark project to promote seed industry innovation and foster a sci-tech innovation hub with core competitiveness. Chen stressed the need to fully implement President Xi Jinping’s important discourses on seed industry development and the spirit of President Xi Jinping’s important speeches made during his inspection tour in Hunan. He added that we should implement decisions and plans made by the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, and the Hunan Provincial People’s Government. Efforts will be made to reply on germplasm, scientific research, and talents advantages of Hunan Province, and follow the general idea of “12356”, so as to make the Yuelu Mountain Laboratory into a safe, clean, and high-quality project. The province will pursue high-standard laboratory construction, making it a national one and contributing to the development of seed industry.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Xiao Juan

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn