No Timetable for GMO Food Sales in China
China's Ministry of Agriculture
last Wednesday said that there was not yet a timetable for the
commercialization of genetically modified food, while the safety certificates
for the country's GMO rice and corn would expire soon. In recent years, Chinese
citizens have been concerned with the potential harm of GMOs on human health
and questioned the safety of consuming GMO foods. This wave of public pressure
on the Chinese government has made the state government hesitate to use GMOs in
food production.
Chen Xiaohua, vice-minister of
the Ministry of Agriculture, stated that the ministry will continue to
scrutinize the commercial production of GMO food, as a response to a question
on the expiration of China's first batch of safety certificates for GMO rice
and corn, which were issued in 2009. The certificates are scheduled to expire
this year but their commercial production is yet to be started.
As Chen stressed China's
"active and cautious" policy toward GMO food, the Ministry of
Agriculture also began to strengthen research and try to breed new GMO strains
with independent intellectual property rights as quickly as possible. By "cautious," Chen means that the Chinese government would work to ensure safety
in promoting and applying GM food. “That's why we have made strict laws and
regulations, and set up a whole set of safety evaluation mechanisms and a
regulating chain involving various departments," said Chen. His remarks suggested that the
commercialization of GM food could not be approved in the short term due to
public fears about its safety. The public does not have much knowledge about GMO
food, which increases their fear, especially as food safety issues have been a
heated topic.
Although the government has
stressed that research on GM products is encouraged, scientists may still feel
disappointed and unconfident about the future of such research, as it is costly
and currently cannot make much profit. The promotion of GMO food has been a
controversial issue for a long time, as some scientists claim that the only way
to solve the growing food security problem in China is to plant GMO crops. More
than 60 scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy
of Engineering jointly submitted a letter to top authorities in July 2013,
calling for promoting the planting of GMO rice.
However, the public is skeptical
about GMO safety and continues to exert pressure on the Chinese government. Some
local governments have banned GMOs under public pressure. Zhangye in Northwest
China's Gansu Province banned any enterprises and organizations from growing,
trading and using GM seeds, not products, in October 2013, in order to ensure
the safety reputation of its agricultural products, which made it the first
city in China to issue such a measure.
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