Beijing - China's leaders decided in early July to go
all-out to develop genetically modified organisms (GMOs), prompted by
rising prices and concerns that the nation of 1.3 billion people may
become more reliant on expensive exports.
Premier Wen Jiabao led a meeting of the cabinet which said the
development of GMOs was of 'great strategic significance to
strengthening innovation in agricultural technology, lifting the
level of plant cultivation, promoting higher efficiency and yield,
and raising the nation's international competitiveness in
agriculture.'
'All relevant departments should fully realize the significance
and urgency of this important project, further perfect the programme
and actively implement it,' the government said in a report on the
meeting.
Agricultural scientists at China's Zhejiang University announced
in March that they had developed a way to create 'selectively
terminable' GM rice, a breakthrough which they hope will lead to the
industrialization of GM rice seeds.
The scientists said the pest- and disease-resistant GM rice plants
can easily be killed through genetically conditioned high sensitivity
to a specific herbicide, eliminating concerns about them becoming
wild or cross-pollinating with normal rice plants.
The Zhejiang project's lead scientist, Shen Zhicheng, said genetic
modification was the best way to increase food production and played
down fears that experimental plants could be secretly used for mass
production or mixed with unmodified varieties.
'It is certain to increase the yield of grain crops and is an
effective way of solving price issues,' Shen said of his team's GMO
work.
'I hope the country will increase its determination to use the new
technology,' he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
'If there is not enough rice to eat, it is right to try every
method to solve the problem by pushing technology,' Shen said.
The third-largest country by land area possesses only 7 per cent
of the world's cultivated land from which to feed one-fifth of the
global population.
It already allows farmers to grow GM peppers, tomatoes and papaya,
and it imports large quantities of GM soybeans, mainly from the
United States.
In the non-food sector, most of China's cotton seed is genetically
modified.
Concerns mounted over the possibility of GM rice creeping into
food markets after environmental group Greenpeace blew the whistle on
illegal sales of GM rice developed by scientists in the central
province of Hubei in 2005.
Greenpeace later said it found GM rice being sold by wholesalers
in the southern city of Guangzhou, close to Hong Kong.
On a visit to China last year, Markos Kyprianou, the European
Commissioner for Health, highlighted unauthorized use of the GMO
known as Bt63 in Chinese exports.
The EU introduced an emergency measure in April requiring Chinese
food exports containing rice to be laboratory-certified as free of
Bt63, citing a 'failure on the part of Chinese authorities to
provide... control samples and a protocol of detection method.'
But Xue Dayuan, a senior researcher at the Nanjing Institution of
Environmental Science, said the government had improved its controls.
'GM crops are seldom planted in China, so we have no conditions
for an 'escape,'' Xue said.
'Now they are in an experimental period in limited areas, and not
industrialized,' he said.
Shen said agriculture ministry officials inspected his project
regularly.
'Our research farm is properly isolated and we dare not let this
experimental rice escape, otherwise we will have to take huge
responsibility,' he said.
Hybrid rice, which the government has actively developed since the
1950s, has already brought China's rice yields close to those of
Japan and is likely to continue as an important element of
agricultural technology.
'My view is that we should develop GM rice and hybrid rice
simultaneously,' Shen said.
The government aims to keep annual grain production over 500
million tons to 2010 and raise it to about 540 million tons by 2020.
Agricultural official Chen Yao recently said this year's target
for rice production was 185.7 million tons, up by 0.1 per cent from
2007.
Food prices have risen by around 20 per cent this year, helping to
fuel inflation of about 8 per cent in the consumer price index.
Rising international grain and oil prices were a major factor
behind the inflation, government economist Yin Jianfeng told state
media in June.
Biofuel also made brief inroads into grain production for food,
bringing more inflationary pressure, before the government stepped in.
'In the past some corn was used to make biofuel, (but) it did not
reach the scale where it affected food prices, like in Brazil and
America,' Xue said.
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