Opposing opinions

Yuan Longping, a leading agricultural scientist, warned last week that health implications of some GM crops, especially the anti-pest strains, remain unclear. He said such crops need to undergo human trials for at least one or two generations.

However, Huang Dafang, a member of the bio-safety committee affiliated to the ministry, responded that GM crops need no human trial at all.

"Previous animal testing has already showed that the crops are as safe to grow and eat as non-GM ones," he said.

"In three to five years, the homegrown GM rice will hit the market. The project will not be affected by unsubstantiated safety criticism, largely based on emotion and fuelled by media hype," he asserted.

China now yields around 500 million tons of grain annually. With the population expected to increase to 1.6 billion by 2020, 630 million tons of grain will be needed, experts said.

"The approved GM rice, which could reduce current pesticide use by 80 percent while increasing present yields by 6 percent, would greatly help meet the demand," Huang said.

Besides scientific value, developing GM agriculture is also of great economic and political importance, said Chen Wenfu, director of the rice research institute of Shenyang Agricultural University.

"All countries, including China, are doing research on the high-end technology, which might lead to a new agricultural landscape worldwide," Chen, a CPPCC member, told China Daily.

In mid-2008, China approved a 4-billion-yuan (US$586 million) budget for GM crop research in the coming years to produce high-quality, high-yield and pest-resistant GM crop species, Xinhua reported.

On March 2, the European Commission, which boasts the strictest laws on GM application, approved a GM potato to be grown, though not for human consumption. It was only the second GM product to be given a green light in Europe.

"The commercial cultivation and release of GM crops should be done extremely carefully," Chen said.

"Given unknown health impacts from GM food, it's good for China to take the lead in GM research rather than in eating GM food," he said.

Besides, due to a lack of a sound food safety supervision network and limited capacity in GM food examination, China is not ready to commercialize GM crops, experts said.

(China Daily March 11, 2010)