A researcher inspects corn seeds at a lab in Zhangye, Gansu Province on November 5, 2013. The city is the first in China to ban GM seeds. Photo: CFP

The technology of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could bring immense benefits to the environment and increase the quantity of agriculture production, Michael Scuse, Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services under the US Department of Agriculture, repeatedly told Chinese media outlets over the course of several recent interviews.

The National Development and Reform Commission reworked draft guidelines for foreign businesses, namely the Catalogue for the Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries, earlier this month.

Several amendments were made to the catalogue including the lifting of a decade-long ban on foreign companies funding GMO research in China, while breeding and growing crops remains off-limits.

GMO research has been a controversial, endlessly debated topic in China and around the world. Many oppose the technology due to fears that GM food may impact the human body in ways that are as yet undetectable.

After banning foreign companies from funding the research and breeding of GM crops in China for more than a decade, this potential change in policy has been seen as a signal that the government may want foreign companies to help fund GMO research and further spur China's technological development. 

A historical breakthrough

To some observers, this change marks a historical breakthrough and a clear encouragement to foreign companies to invest in China, as if this draft is approved, foreign firms will be able to work with local research bodies on GMO research.

William S. Niebur, a vice president of DuPont, a global chemicals and healthcare company, said he was excited about the news. The amendment shows that President Xi Jinping and related government bodies are supportive of GMO development and that they are well-prepared for it, he said.

Yu Xinrong, vice minister of agriculture, also expressed government support during the 2014 China Food and Food Safety Strategy Summit in Beijing on November 7. "The Chinese government welcomes international businesses within the seed industry to come to China," he said.

China has been devoting resources to the field of agricultural biotechnology for many years. China has become a world leader in GM farming, with more than 4 million hectares of its farmland planted with GM crops, according to China News Service. The main biotech crop in China is cotton, followed by papayas, poplar trees, tomatoes and sweet peppers.

The proposed amendment is still in the consultation state, and the deadline for the consultation is December 3. Regarding the long-standing concerns about the safety of GM food, President Xi shared his thoughts on GMOs in December last year; he said that the top priority of such biotechnology research must be to ensure safety and that innovation must come second to this.

The central government's attitude toward GMO crops remains "active" in research and "careful" in adoption. The Ministry of Agriculture has been educating the public about the safety of such crops, stressing the importance of biotechnology to increasing grain yields.

A sustainable choice

China's demand for food has been rising and the country's agricultural resources are under severe stress, according to Li Wei, the director of the Development Research Center of the State Council.

Li said that China's consumption of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has gone beyond international standards and that the nation's groundwater reserves are being overused. "If such industries continue to extract groundwater, land subsidence will occur," he said.

"There are 50 million mu (3.33 million hectares) of land which are heavily or moderately contaminated in China. A majority of contaminated land is located in regions with more intensive agricultural production," he added. "When the environment is under such stress, it cannot easily recover in a short period of time and hence this will affect the quality and safety of food."

In order to protect the environment and ensure food safety, Luo Yunbo, a GM food expert at the China Agricultural University, told the Global Times that GMOs are a necessity that must be developed because GM crops have proved to be more sustainable and healthy compared with their unmodified counterparts. "For example GM crops which can resist pests do not need to be sprayed with pesticides. This means we consume less chemicals in our food," he said.

If the ban on GMO research funded by foreign companies is actually lifted, analysts say that China's biotechnology industry will become more developed and specialized.

The lifting of the ban will allow Chinese firms to learn about the biotechnological developments that have occurred in the last 25 years from other countries. It is not possible for China to develop a new, mature and specialized technology alone in the near future given its current rate of development progress, Niebur said

As long as the technology can be shown to bring advantages to the people, it will be adopted by farmers and the agriculture industry very easily, he said.

"Cooperation between China and foreign companies will boost the development of agricultural technology, improve the quality of seeds and of farming techniques." 

Lurking restrictions

However, experts also expressed concerns about allowing foreign companies to fund GMO research in China.

Li Zhangjian, a professor at the Huazhong Agricultural University, said that related government bodies will scrutinize foreign companies' proposed investments when they receive their applications but at the moment there are few clear guidelines and regulations governing such matters. He warned that the mishandling of applications may inadvertently create monopolies.

Li said that despite the fact that China's seed laws say that the country enjoys sovereign rights on all domestically researched germplasm, the genetic information of any new crops, many foreign companies have bypassed these restrictions through various means.

"Some foreign businesses, in the name of sponsorship, invest a small amount of money just to gain access to China's germplasm information and the end results of any research that is conducted. As a result, China's biotechnology research organizations end up acting as service providers for foreign investors and foreign enterprises can use the end results of joint research to attack the Chinese seed industry, perhaps even monopolizing the global seed industry," he explained.

"Also, when foreign enterprises cooperate with local companies, their local partners, in many cases, are only responsible for marketing and do not have access to the core biotechnology used in GMO research, and as a result the joint venture is often led primarily by the foreign companies," he added.

China Business Journal