Asia’s fruit wars: The secretive world of plant invention and seed smuggling

The fruit hanging on the branch looks tantalizingly good – round and plump, with a fragrant, deep orange skin.

But this isn’t just any fruit. The Beni Princess is a prized citrus with a signature jelly-like texture and sweet juice that took 20 years to develop by crossbreeding two elite varieties.

Creating new varieties of fruit is a lucrative business, and Japan’s luxury cultivars often command whopping prices. So when Ehime prefecture in the country’s southwest proudly unveiled the Beni Princess last year, orchardists saw opportunity.

On their five-acre family farm, Ryohei Mori and his wife Kyeong-hui Choi had around 200 trees of another citrus variety ripped up so they could plant the Beni Princess –– even taking out a loan to build new facilities.

“It costs an absolute fortune at first. Buying the saplings, building the greenhouses, and everything,” Mori said.

The return may be worth the investment when they begin selling the first batches next spring. The only problem? Chinese farmers might beat them to it – and without permission, according to Japanese media reports .

Choi said she was appalled at the prospect the fruit might have been “stolen,” but said she was resigned to the fact there was nothing they could do besides hope that Japan’s government might act.

Courtesy Hojo Mori Farm

It can take years of tedious research and testing to develop new crops –– to ensure not only that they taste good, but also that they can grow at scale. The development costs can be eye-watering.

Just like other types of intellectual property (IP), fruit varieties can be proprietary and protected by law. But while you can report copyright infringement for a movie or a song, it’s much harder to prevent people from taking and planting seeds.

That has spawned a shadow war involving seed espionage and sapling smuggling across Asia – which experts say not only hurts farmers and breeders, but also stymies much-needed innovation as climate change threatens food security.

The Beni Princess appears to have been the latest target, with reports that seedlings are being sold on Chinese e-commerce sites – while its application for IP protection is still pending.

CNN couldn’t independently verify the claims, but the speculation prompted a plea from Ehime’s governor for Tokyo to investigate. Norikazu Suzuki, Japan’s agriculture minister, has called the issue “particularly serious.”

A major fruit innovator, Japan has been burned before by seed copycats. After it debuted the Shine Muscat grape in the early 2000s, Japan naively failed to register the fruit – highly coveted for its floral scent and juiciness – for protection in overseas markets. A deadline passed, then it was too late; now, Chinese and South Korean farms grow and sell the Shine Muscat in huge quantities and at a steep discount.

The price difference is evident during a quick stop at Hong Kong supermarkets – with Chinese Shine Muscats selling at 1/20th the cost of their Japanese equivalent. Suzuki estimated that Japan misses out on 20 billion yen ($126.9 million) every year in lost royalties due to the licensing mistake.

The lost revenue is a concern for Shinya Sato, a grower in Japan’s central Yamanashi prefecture who depends on Shine Muscats and other grape varieties for his livelihood. “I want people to enjoy eating what I grow, and I want to be fairly compensated for my labor,” he said.

“Everyone works hard to build up that value and make something delicious.”

There’s no simple way to protect a plant variety across borders.

Protection laws vary by country – for instance, a breeder in Japan who wants to prevent their unique variety from being copied in China or South Korea would need to apply for protection separately in those countries. And what legally counts as infringement in one country might not count in another.

But several governments across Asia have tightened their regulations in recent years, making it easier for breeders to protect their varieties, said David Jefferson, an associate professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand who specializes in environmental and intellectual property law.

China has strengthened its seed protection laws several times in the last few years; similarly, Japan passed new legislation in July to prevent the illicit export of homegrown varieties. And increasingly, Jefferson said, countries are adjusting their laws to move closer to a global standard set by the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) , which has 80 member states.

But UPOV is not an enforcement agency. So when a plant gets stolen, smuggled out of the country, and grown elsewhere without permission, it’s up to the breeder to stop it – by proving through genetic testing that the replicated fruit in question is the proprietary variety, and going to law enforcement.

That’s a daunting task for smaller institutions like university research labs or think tanks that lack the resources to track down seed smugglers and prove their case. But large multinational companies, whose original varieties are fiercely protected, have had some success.

In 2011, Iowa farmers found a Chinese national on his knees in a cornfield, digging through the soil. He fled, and the ensuing FBI investigation unraveled a long-running conspiracy to steal genetically modified corn seeds and ship them to China.

The thief, Mo Hailong, was sentenced in 2016 to 36 months in prison for conspiracy to steal trade secrets from DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto, two of the world’s largest seed companies at the time. He was scheduled to be deported after being released.

Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

That same year, the world’s biggest seller of kiwifruit, New Zealand-based Zespri, hired private investigators to dig into rumors that its Sungold variety was being illegally grown and sold in China.

This was a big deal; years earlier, Zespri had specifically created the sweeter golden kiwifruit to be resistant to a disease that had ravaged kiwifruit orchards around the world. The new variety helped the industry recover from the disease, and was a windfall for Zespri, which registered the fruit as its exclusive property in many countries including China.

The smuggler, Chinese national Gao Haoyu, owned a Sungold orchard in New Zealand and was licensed to grow and sell the variety there – but he secretly took young branches to China and sold them to farmers there. Before long, the Sungold variety had been illegally planted on more than 200 hectares in Hubei province and sold online.

After a protracted legal battle, a New Zealand court ordered Gao to pay Zespri $8.8 million in damages in 2020. And last year, a Chinese court ordered him to remove all Sungold orchards in China and to pay Zespri nearly $780,000.

CNN attempted to contact Gao through the last publicly available email and phone number associated with his New Zealand business. We did not hear back. But, in interviews with Chinese media, he has claimed that his motives were altruistic.

“99% of kiwifruit growers in China support me,” he told Chinese outlet Caixin in 2021. “I just wanted to contribute to the Chinese people by bringing the varieties over for everyone to grow, but I never made money from the varieties.”

Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

Gao isn’t the only one who’s made this argument. Mo, the corn seed thief, also argued that corn was a public good, according to “The Scientist and the Spy,” a book by journalist Mara Hvistendahl on the case.

Other critics argue that food shouldn’t be controlled by large agricultural corporations, and that plant variety protection laws disempower local and indigenous communities.

Jefferson, the professor, acknowledged these real concerns, especially among developing nations in South and Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

But, he said, under most laws, breeders have to be able to prove that their creations are new and improved in some way to be registered for protection. And, he said, these laws are necessary because the unauthorized spread of newly developed varieties can cause widespread harm.

For one, it drives down the overall price of the crop. Take Shine Muscat grapes: “Once known to be one of the prized varieties, it now produces nothing for farmers,” said Minori Hagiwara, who chairs a UPOV subcommittee and works in Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

These premium fruits also often require methodical techniques to ensure their signature characteristics, like the precise amount of sunlight or the timing of pruning. But illicit growers are likely to churn out lower-quality fruit sold under the same name. “It really doesn’t reward the farmers who put in effort,” Hagiwara said.

It’s not just growers at risk from seed smuggling; when original varieties are protected and licensed, it creates a whole supply chain of exporters and distributors who are all impacted by illicit distribution.

The broader concern, though, is stifling innovation. When there’s rampant stealing of new varieties, countries will invest less in research and development because there’s no guarantee they’ll earn it back. Japan, for instance, is targeted heavily in fruit theft because it produces so many “premium” products – and it’s now spending less each year creating new varieties, potentially threatening its competitive edge in the market, Hagiwara said.

Climate change raises the stakes –– with yields of some traditional staple crops, like rice, already plummeting in places like Vietnam and Thailand. Crop innovation is seen as critical to guaranteeing long-term food supplies.

Vietnam, a UPOV member, has enthusiastically invested in creating new, resilient rice varieties –– and their yield has begun to increase in recent years, Hagiwara said. Meanwhile neighboring Thailand, with weaker variety protection laws, continues to see yields tank.

One of UPOV’s key goals is to create a universal patent, so that with one application, a breeder can get worldwide protection, she added. But it’s still a far-off dream.

In the meantime, farmers do their best to beef up security – hyperaware that all someone needs to do is cut off a branch from their trees for it to be smuggled away, draining their profits from some distant orchard in another country.

Sato, the Shine Muscat grape grower, said when his father owned the farm, there were no security measures. Now, he keeps defensive netting around his vines during harvest season to deter thieves.

But he can only do so much.

“There’s stealing directly from the field, but there’s also stealing our brand value, taking it and pretending they built it themselves,” he said.

Shuai Zhang contributed reporting.

挂在枝头的果实看起来非常诱人——圆润饱满，果皮呈深橙色，散发着浓郁的香气。

但这并非普通的水果。“贝尼公主”是一种珍贵的柑橘类水果，具有独特的果冻状质地和甜美的果汁，它是通过两种优良品种杂交，历时20年培育而成的。

培育新品种水果是一项利润丰厚的生意，日本的顶级水果品种往往价格不菲。因此，当日本西南部的爱媛县去年自豪地推出“红公主”水果时，果农们看到了商机。

为了种植红公主柑橘，森亮平和他的妻子崔京熙在他们五英亩的家庭农场里砍掉了大约 200 棵其他柑橘品种的树——甚至还贷款建造了新的设施。

“一开始花费巨大。购买树苗、建​​造温室等等，都需要一大笔钱，”森说道。

明年春天首批产品上市时，这笔投资或许就能获得回报。唯一的问题是？据日本媒体报道，中国农民可能会抢先一步，而且未经许可就进行种植。

崔女士表示，她对水果可能被“偷走”的想法感到震惊，但她也无奈地接受了这样一个事实：除了希望日本政府采取行动之外，他们什么也做不了。

承蒙北条森农场惠允

培育新作物需要数年繁琐的研究和测试，不仅要确保其口感好，还要保证其能够大规模种植。研发成本可能非常高昂。

与其他类型的知识产权一样，水果品种也属于专有财产，并受法律保护。但是，虽然你可以举报电影或歌曲的版权侵权行为，但要阻止他人获取和种植种子却困难得多。

这引发了一场涉及种子间谍活动和亚洲幼苗走私的影子战争——专家表示，这不仅损害了农民和育种者的利益，而且阻碍了气候变化威胁粮食安全所亟需的创新。

贝尼公主似乎成了最新的目标，有报道称，其幼苗正在中国电商网站上出售——而其知识产权保护申请仍在等待审批。

CNN无法独立核实这些说法，但这些猜测促使爱媛县知事呼吁东京方面展开调查。日本农林水产大臣铃木典和称此事“尤为严重”。

作为水果创新大国，日本曾因种子仿冒而蒙受损失。2000年代初，日本推出“闪耀麝香”（Shine Muscat）葡萄品种后，由于疏忽大意，未能为其在海外市场注册，以保护其品种权。这种葡萄因其芬芳的花香和多汁的口感而备受追捧。错过了注册期限后，为时已晚；如今，中国和韩国的农场大量种植并以极低的价格销售“闪耀麝香”葡萄。

在香港超市稍作停留，便可明显感受到价格差异——中国产的Shine Muscat葡萄酒售价仅为日本同类产品的二十分之一。铃木估计，由于授权失误，日本每年损失高达200亿日元（约合1.269亿美元）的专利费。

收入损失令日本中部山梨县的葡萄种植户佐藤真也担忧。他依靠种植“闪耀麝香”和其他葡萄品种为生。“我希望人们能享用我种植的葡萄，也希望我的劳动能得到公平的回报。”他说。

“每个人都努力工作来创造价值，做出美味佳肴。”

没有简单的办法可以跨越国界保护植物品种。

各国的保护法不​​尽相同——例如，日本的育种者如果想防止其独特品种在中国或韩国被仿制，则需要分别在这两个国家申请保护。而且，在一个国家构成侵权的行为，在另一个国家可能并不构成侵权。

但新西兰坎特伯雷大学专门研究环境和知识产权法的副教授大卫·杰斐逊表示，近年来亚洲一些国家的政府收紧了相关法规，使得育种者更容易保护他们的品种。

过去几年，中国多次加强种子保护法；同样，日本也在7月通过了新的立法，以防止国产品种的非法出口。杰斐逊表示，越来越多的国家正在调整本国法律，以更接近由拥有80个成员国的国际植物新品种保护联盟（UPOV）制定的全球标准。

但国际植物新品种保护联盟（UPOV）并非执法机构。因此，当一种植物被盗、走私出境并在未经许可的情况下在其他地方种植时，育种者有责任阻止这种情况发生——通过基因检测证明被复制的果实是其专有品种，并向执法部门举报。

对于像大学研究实验室或智库这样规模较小的机构来说，这是一项艰巨的任务，因为它们缺乏追踪种子走私者和证实其指控所需的资源。但大型跨国公司由于其原创品种受到严密保护，已经取得了一些成功。

2011年，爱荷华州的农民发现一名中国公民跪在玉米地里，正在翻找泥土。他随后逃跑，联邦调查局的调查揭露了一起长期存在的阴谋，该阴谋旨在窃取转基因玉米种子并将其运往中国。

窃贼莫海龙于2016年因合谋窃取杜邦先锋和孟山都（当时全球最大的两家种子企业）的商业机密而被判处36个月监禁。他出狱后将被遣返。

Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

同年，全球最大的猕猴桃销售商、总部位于新西兰的Zespri公司聘请私家侦探调查有关其Sungold品种猕猴桃在中国被非法种植和销售的传闻。

这意义重大；多年前，佳沛公司专门培育出了更甜的金奇异果，使其能够抵抗一种肆虐全球奇异果园的疾病。这一新品种帮助整个行业从疾病中恢复过来，也为佳沛公司带来了意外之财。佳沛公司在包括中国在内的许多国家注册了该品种的独家所有权。

走私者高浩宇是中国公民，他在新西兰拥有一片金太阳苹果园，并持有在当地种植和销售该品种的许可证。但他却秘密地将幼枝运回中国，卖给当地农民。不久之后，金太阳苹果在湖北省的非法种植面积就超过了200公顷，并通过网络销售。

经过漫长的法律诉讼，新西兰一家法院于 2020 年判令高以翔向 Zespri 支付 880 万美元的赔偿金。去年，中国一家法院判令他拆除在中国的所有金太阳果园，并向 Zespri 支付近 78 万美元的赔偿金。

CNN曾尝试通过高以翔在新西兰的公司提供的最后一个公开邮箱和电话号码联系他，但未收到回复。不过，他在接受中国媒体采访时声称，他的动机是出于利他主义。

“中国99%的猕猴桃种植户都支持我，”他在2021年接受中国媒体财新采访时表示。“我只是想通过引进这些品种让中国人民种植，为中国人民做贡献，但我从未从这些品种中赚过钱。”

Peter Parks/法新社/盖蒂图片社

高并非唯一提出这种观点的人。据记者玛拉·赫维斯滕达尔所著的《科学家与间谍》一书所述，玉米种子窃贼莫某也曾辩称玉米是公共物品。

其他批评者则认为，食品不应该由大型农业公司控制，而且植物品种保护法会削弱当地和土著社区的权力。

杰斐逊教授承认这些担忧是真实存在的，尤其是在南亚、东南亚和撒哈拉以南非洲的发展中国家。

但他表示，根据大多数法律，育种者必须能够证明他们的培育成果是全新的，并且在某些方面有所改良，才能获得注册保护。他还说，这些法律是必要的，因为未经授权传播新培育的品种可能会造成广泛的危害。

首先，这会拉低农作物的整体价格。以Shine Muscat葡萄为例：“它曾经是备受推崇的品种之一，但现在却无法为农民带来任何收益，”日本农林水产省的UPOV（国际植物新品种保护联盟）分委会主席萩原实里说道。

这些优质水果通常需要严格的种植技术才能确保其独特品质，例如精准的日照量和修剪时间。但非法种植者往往会生产品质较低的水果，却以同样的品牌出售。“这真的没有给辛勤耕耘的农民带来任何回报，”萩原说道。

种子走私不仅危及种植者；当原始品种受到保护和许可时，就会形成一条完整的出口商和分销商供应链，而非法分销都会影响到他们。

然而，更广泛的担忧在于扼杀创新。当新品种被肆意盗窃时，各国就会减少研发投入，因为无法保证能够收回成本。萩原指出，例如，日本水果盗窃猖獗，因为它生产大量“高端”水果——而如今，日本每年在培育新品种方面的投入却在减少，这可能会威胁到其市场竞争力。

气候变化加剧了粮食安全形势——在越南和泰国等地，一些传统主粮作物（如水稻）的产量已经大幅下降。作物创新被视为保障长期粮食供应的关键。

越南是国际植物新品种保护联盟（UPOV）成员，该国积极投资培育新的、抗逆性强的水稻品种，近年来产量已开始增长，萩原说道。与此同时，邻国泰国由于品种保护法律较为薄弱，水稻产量持续下降。

她补充说，UPOV的主要目标之一是创建通用专利，这样育种者只需提交一份申请即可获得全球保护。但这仍然是一个遥远的梦想。

与此同时，农民们竭尽全力加强安保——他们非常清楚，只要有人砍下他们树上的一根树枝，就可能被走私走，让他们从遥远的异国果园中榨取利润。

种植“闪耀麝香”葡萄的佐藤先生说，他父亲拥有这片农场时，没有任何安保措施。现在，在收获季节，他会在葡萄藤周围架起防护网，以防止盗窃。

但他能做的也有限。

他说：“这不仅是直接从赛场上偷窃，也是窃取我们的品牌价值，把我们的品牌价值据为己有，然后假装是他们自己创造的。”

张帅贡献了报道。