GM crop use may endanger China's food security

• Source: Global Times
• [21:40 March 17 2010]
• Comments

Zhou Li

Editor's Note:

The recent issuing of bio-safety certificates to rice and corn genetically modified (GM) to be resistant to pests has stirred up controversy in China, as it makes the country one of the first to authorize the large-scale usage of GM crops. Sixteen scholars published an appeal against the promotion of trans-genetic staple food crops on March 10. The Chinese government used to be very cautious about genetic engineering, but since 2008, its policies have become more supportive. China plans to invest 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) in developing GM technologies between 2008 to 2020. The first government policy statement of the year also stressed developing GM crops and promoting the industrialization of farming through GM methods. Is GM food the best choice? How will it affect China's agriculture? Global Times (GT) reporter Li Yanjie talked with Zhou Li (Zhou), an associate professor at the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China, on these issues.

GT: What do you think of the Ministry of Agriculture's recent decision to issue bio-safety certificates to two strains of GM crops?

Zhou: China has its own reasons for taking such swift action. But the Ministry of Agriculture is still being too hasty in issuing the certificates, as there are not enough experiments to prove GM food's safety.

Each technological revolution brings with it safety issues. Just as nuclear technology and the Internet caused nuclear and Internet security problems, genetic engineering will certainly lead to problems of ecological security and human health safety. More experiments are needed to test the effects of GM food on these issues.

Genes implanted in crops will affect human bodies and lives directly. Yuan Longping, the Chinese inventor of hybrid rice, also said that it would take two generations to test GM food's safety and see whether it would affect fertility.

I once wrote an article analyzing the interest groups behind GM food. Multinational food corporations make great profits from it, as they monopolize the development and application of transgenic food technologies.

Food is also a form of international political power, and the promotion of GM technologies is used by governments as a strategic tool.

GM technologies usually have excellent short-term performance, therefore local governments and farmers want to grow GM crops, and Chinese companies want to cooperate with multinational seed providers.

Universities and institutes studying GM technologies also want to acquire funds and publish papers. Many mul-tinational food corporations and seed corporations have funded key universities and institutes to support their research, teaching, scholarship, conferences and cooperative research. Thus researchers have become their foot soldiers in the gene war in order to obtain funding.

I don't know whether such interest groups are behind the issuing of the two bio-safety certificates.

GT: Is GM food a necessary choice for China's agriculture?

Zhou: I think the development of agriculture and rural areas must respect natural laws and social laws first, and then economic and political laws.

China has a large and growing population. But in China, biodiversity conservation, regionalized agriculture, small-scale family farms and other ways that have been proved effective haven't received enough financial support, and their potential to increase production hasn't been made good use of.

Besides, China still has great potential to use conventional breeding, irrigation and water conservancy, and other agricultural infrastructure.

These, instead of GM food, are the most important methods to ensure food security and safety. Before we have used these methods in the best way possible, it's too early to say that GM technologies are the only solution, even putting aside the issue of GM safety.

GT: One focus of controversy is the effects of GM food on the human body. There have been reports that GM food had harmful side effects on animals used during experiments. What's your opinion on this?

Zhou: There are two big groups of people concerning GM food. One is producers, the other consumers. No one has asked farmers whether they'd like to grow GM crops and we consumers whether we'd like to eat GM food. I think it's not right to proclaim GM food is safe without asking producers' and consumers' opinion.

GT: How do you evaluate GM technology's potential threat to the environment ?

Zhou: Our ecology includes the natural environment, soil, air, water, plants and animals. No one has ever evaluated GM food's safety from the perspective of these creatures, and they can't speak for themselves.

GM plants, if promoted commercially or planted for experiments without strict limitations, will pollute other plants' genes by hybridizing with them.

Promotion of GM technologies can easily lead to single-crop cultivation. Only planting one or a limited selection of crops will certainly lead to a serious systematic crisis due to the lack of diversity.

A minor change might cause the system's collapse. The sole cultivation of one kind of potato in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century caused millions of deaths after the crops were wiped out by pests.

Actually, GM technologies are simple technologies, and we can hardly evaluate whether they're good or not. The point is who is using these technologies. Only those affected have the right to decide.