By Bill Smith

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.

www.checkbiotech.org