BEIJING - China is expected to increase its spending on agricultural
biotechnology almost five fold by 2010 in an attempt to improve food
security for its rapidly increasing population the Financial Times
reported , March 2007 by Richard Bowden

China's population, currently 1.3 billion or twenty percent of the
world's total, is expected to rise to 1.5 billion by 2020. Yet with only
seven percent of the world's arable land, China needs to address the
problem of feeding its people.

By increasing its research in genetically modified food products, China
hopes to lessen its dependency on other countries for food products such
as soy beans.

"The government takes the issue of food security seriously," said Zhang
Liang Chen, president of the Agricultural University of China. "Last
year we imported 17m tonnes of soybean from the US, Brazil and
Argentina. This dependency could lead to trouble in the future."

Already accounting for twenty percent of the world's investment into
global research into agricultural biotechnology, the spending is
expected to more than quadruple as China attempts to meet soaring food
demand.

With an estimated 6.8 million Chinese farmers already using
biotechnology crops, increased Chinese research spending could
potentially posing a commercial threat to more established biotech
companies such as the American giant Monsanto.

"The landscape is changing very fast," said Clive James, chairman of the
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications.
"China has already developed a biotechnology cotton variety that is
insect-resistant that competes with the private sector companies."

www.checkbiotech.org