Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua visited the Nanfan Scientific and Research Breeding Base in Sanya, South China's Hainan province, on Nov 8.

He urged strengthening construction and management of the base to transform it into an agricultural “Silicon Valley” that serves the whole country.

Hainan province is China’s important crop seed research and breeding base. Hu visited the experimental Institute of Crop Sciences under Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences station and a hybrid rice research and breeding base.

The Nanfan Scientific and Research Breeding Base is a valuable agricultural scientific research platform and plays an irreplaceable role in the breeding techniques of increasing generations, identification and screening and gene function research, the vice-premier said.

Efforts should be made to protect the land use of the base, accelerate construction of scientific research supporting service areas and build innovative platforms on scientific research breeding to improve sci-tech innovation capabilities of the industry, he said.

He also called for greater protection of genetic resources, cultivation of new varietals with independent intellectual property rights and the development of large-scale seed companies.