The No.1 Central Document of 2016 proposed to promote the GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) industry cautiously, which has drawn heated discussions.
The Chinese government successively approved the commercial cultivation of GM cotton and GM pawpaw in 1999 and 2006 respectively. The government avoided to mention the GM projects, but focused on the popularization of the industry after it proposed to propel the industrialization of the new varieties of GM crops in 2009. Until 2016, there’s no progress on the industrialization, since the government has wandered between the will of the people and the pressure of the international competition.
Source: Internet
From strengthening supervision and regulation to pushing on industrialization
In 2007, the No.1 Central Document firstly came up with the concept of “genetically modified”. The document pointed out that the government should strengthen the supervision and regulation among the quality and safety of the agricultural products and the marketing service, and strictly carry out the labeling system of the agricultural products, such as GM food and the liquid milk.
In 2008, the No.1 Central Document proposed to accelerate the research, development, popularization and application of the agricultural science and launch the special projects on cultivating the new GMOs.
In 2009, the No.1 Central Document firstly raised the concept of “industrialization of the genetically modified crops”. It proposed to accelerate the innovation on the agricultural technology and the special projects of cultivating GMOs, integrate scientific research sources, and strengthen the efforts on the research and development, thus to cultivate new GM crops with the high qualities of anti-disease, anti-pest, anti-reversibility, high yield, high productivity and advance the industrialization as soon as possible.
From “strengthening supervision and regulation” to “accelerating the research and development” and “advancing industrialization”, the changes on the wording shows the changes of the government on GM crops.
In 2010, the No.1 Central Document continually mentioned the concept of “industrialization of the genetically modified crops”; meanwhile, the document came up with the concept of the “proprietary intellectual property rights”, proposed to advance the industrialization of the new species of the genetically modified crops. Deng Xinxiu, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), alleged that “China’s GMOs research on the crops entered a new phase.”
Avoiding “genetically modified”, focusing on strengthening popularization of science
In 2011, the No.1 Central Document mainly focused on the water conservancy facilities construction, other projects including the GM issues were not mentioned.
In 2012, the No.1 Central Document suggested “continually carry out the special scientific projects of cultivating the GMos, reinforce the research on the agricultural non-profit industries.”
In 2013, the No.1 Central Document was free of the issues related to the GMOs.
In 2014, the No.1 Central Document proposed “strengthen the fundamental research on the molecular breeding and the development of the biotechnology.”
According to Chen Xiwen, vice director of the Office of Central Rural Work Leading Group, we called the GM breeding as the molecular breeding. Recently, not only in China, but in some degree among the whole world, the social opinion and discussion was highly focused on GM engineering, people concerns the safety of the GM crops produced by the molecular breeding.
According to Chen Xiwen, there are three things the Chinese government concerns: firstly, the molecular breeding is the cutting-edge technology of the bioscience around the world; China, as a vast agricultural country, has to make great efforts to catch up with the forward position in terms of the scientific research.
Secondly, the GM seeds must go through with strict examination before they go into the market; only when the seeds are confirmed to be free of producing any side effects can they be approved to go to the market. Any individual shall be not allowed to spread the GM seeds as the general goods before the examination.
Thirdly, the government should guarantee consumers with the right to know. According to the policy China has carried out at present, special logos should be labeled on the GM products or products containing GM ingredients. The consumers have the right to know whether or not the product contained the GM factors and to make decisions on their own. This would be a long-term policy.
“Most importantly, the relevant departments should implement strict safety assessment and examination on the products and guarantee the consumers with right to know. Those two principles, I think, would be carried out over a long period of time.”
According to Chen Xiwen, “Actually, there are very few GM foods launched on the market in China. China ranked two or three in terms of the seeded area of the GM crops, most of which are GM cotton. As for the GM foods, we have just approved GM pawpaw into cultivation, the alleged GM tomato, pepper and other vegetables are yet to be introduced.”
In 2015, the No.1 Central Document referred to the GM technology in this way: “to strengthen the safety regulation and scientific popularization on the research of agricultural GMOs; to reinforce the research on the agricultural GM organism technology.”
Han Jun, vice director of the Office of Central Rural Work Leading Group, said that the scientific popularization of the GM technology was aimed to help the public and the media to be clear on the technology, including its history, present situation, characteristics, safety issues and risks, therefore to be more rational on the GM technology and the GM products.
To promote the industry cautiously again when the industrialization failed
In 2016, the No.1 Central Document made clear “to reinforce the research, supervision and regulation on the agricultural GM technology and to cautiously popularize the technology on the basis of safety.”
“A new round of agricultural technology revolution and industry reform is breeding. In the field of agricultural biotechnology, China, with the population of 1.3 billion, cannot be fall behind but has to seize the commanding point of the technology. That’s the reason why the No.1 Central Document proposed to reinforce the research on the agricultural GM technology,” according to Han Jun.
Although there are still some disputes over the GM technology, the commercial cultivation scale of the GM crops is continuously extending around the world. All the GM products have gone through a number of safety study and assessment review before the commercial cultivation. According to the authoritative conclusions, any GM food that’s been approved for marketing is as safe as the traditional food. China has all the way kept its positive attitude to the GM technology.
Tong Pingya, researcher of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, stated that the document of 2016 is quite different from the documents in the previous years, which shows that the government is very cautious on dealing with the GM issues. The key point of “to promote the industry cautiously” is “to promote”, rather than “cautiously”; thus we can conclude that generally, the government is standing by developing the GM technology.
*This article is an edited and translated version by CCM. The original article comes from the paper.com.
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Tag: GMO