Origin Agritech Secures Exclusive Nationwide Rights to Zhongdan 6202, the Flagship Machine-Harvest Corn Hybrid Developed Under China's National 14th Five-Year Plan Breeding Program

BEIJING, Aug. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Origin Agritech Ltd. (NASDAQ: SEED) (the “Company” or “Origin”), a leading Chinese agricultural technology company, today announced that it has secured exclusive nationwide rights to Zhongdan 6202, the flagship early-maturing corn hybrid developed under China's National Key Research and Development Program of the 14th Five-Year Plan. Under the agreement signed with the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (“CAAS”), Origin Agritech holds exclusive rights across the full commercial chain — seed production, sales and marketing, demonstration promotion, and intellectual property enforcement — for a variety that carries national registration approval and three consecutive years of national trial data behind it.

The agreement moves a state-funded breeding breakthrough out of the research institute and into commercial production. CAAS bred Zhongdan 6202 over four years of publicly funded work; Origin Agritech will carry it the last mile — from experimental plot to farm gate — through the distributor, cooperative, and agronomic service network the Company has built across Northeast and North China. That handoff, from laboratory to open field, is the step at which most state-funded varieties in China stall.