China
June 2011

SUMMARY

According to Ministry of Agriculture, it is very necessary to spread scientific knowledge about GM crops at present because most of people in China have little or no knowledge about GM crops and they are easily be misguided by unscientific speech. On 27 June, Ministry of Agriculture published a book, namely "100 questions about GM crops", aiming to spread scientific knowledge about GM crops and GM products to create a favorable circumstance for the development of GM crops in China. Ministry of Agriculture has strengthened the propagating of the knowledge on GM crops since late last year. In late 2010, Chinese government set up a special funds of about USD0.4 million for scientists to spread GM crops to the public.

Early this year, Ministry of Agriculture released a notice asking agriculture departments at all levels should further propagate GM crops knowledge. Besides the publication of the book, agriculture departments in Beijing and Hebei held promotional activities recently to propagate GM crops knowledge. The government's recent policies showed that China may take GM technology as an effective measure to safeguard the food security. Although China hasn't approved the commercial production of GM grain crops so far, GM food is widely consumed in domestic market.

• Although China hasn't approved the commercial production of GM grain crops so far, GM food is widely consumed in domestic market.
• China received 8,070 PBR applications from 1999 to 30 April 2011, most of which are from research institutes.
• CRI, CAAS has made huge progress in GM wheat breeding with the development of several drought-resistant varieties.
• A famous scientist from CAAS suggests that domestic researchers screen the corn germplasm resources if it is genetic modified.
• Winall Hi-tech signed an agreement with AAAS for the cooperation on rice breeding technology.
• Xinjiang Condy failed to apply for IPO in GEM, probably due to its poor capacity of research and breeding basically.
• Longping High-Tech to increase the registered capital of its holding subsidiary Xinjiang Hong'an in chili business.
• Shandong Denghai is accelerating the construction of seed production bases in western China.
• The Second Guangxi-Asean vegetable exhibition attracted over 350 organizations to seize the fast growing vegetable seed market opportunities in Guangxi.
• Foreign companies are striving to seize more Chinese market, especially the corn seed sector, which shall cause great impact on domestic seed industry.

Source

Website: http://www.rabobank.com

Published: June 30, 2011