Sources from the website of Shandong Provincial People's Government show that the Fourth Exhibition of Agricultural Plant New Varieties and Trade Fair of Variety Rights, sponsored by Ministry of Agriculture and Shandong Provincial People's Government, is held in Laizhou on September 2. Nearly 100 agricultural administration departments, scientific research units and seed enterprises from 25 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government nationwide attend the fair. Vice Minister of Agriculture Zhang Taolin and Vice Governor of Shandong Province Jia Wanzhi participate in the opening ceremony.

With a theme of "safeguarding rights and interests, encouraging innovation, accelerating transformation and improving industry," the trade fair launches field exhibition and demonstration of new plant varieties that have applied for and have been granted the variety rights, and conducts activities such as indoor exhibition of new varieties of agricultural plants, exchanges of variety rights and academic exchanges. Field exhibition covers 163 varieties such as corn, peanut and vegetable while indoor exhibition involves in 492 varieties in 30 categories such as cotton and wheat. At the exhibition, research institutes and enterprises sign agreements of variety right transformation, covering 20 varieties, with the trade value exceeding 80 million yuan.

Statistics show that the new agricultural variety right application and grant keep increasing currently. By July 31 this year, the number of variety right applications in China reaches 5,099, including 1,746 being granted. Sichuan, Shandong, Henan and Jilin rank the top four in terms of application volume, exceeding 400 each, with their combined application number accounting for more than 35 percent of the country's total. Field crops are the major categories of variety right application, accounting for 90 percent of the total.