The Chinese Government will reinforce the regulation and control on the research and spread of the agricultural GM (genetically-modified) technology to ensure the food safety.
Source: Internet
According to the No.1 Central Document—The CPC Central Committee’s and State Council’s Views on Accelerating Agricultural Modernization by Developing New Concepts and Achieving the Goal of the All-round Well-off Society—released by the Central Committee of the CPC on 27th January, 2016, China will reinforce the regulation and control on the research and spread of the agricultural GM technology to ensure the food safety.
It has been the 8th times when the word “GM” appeared in the No.1 Central Document. During the period from 2007 to 2012 (except 2011), all the documents mentioned a range of GM technologies, including the labeling system of the GM foods, launching the special projects on cultivating the GM organism, integrating the scientific research resources and advancing the industrialization of the GM products.
GM technology was not mentioned by the No.1 Central Document in 2013. While in 2014, the document was proposed to “reinforce the fundamental research and biotechnology of the molecular breeding”, which was deemed to the purpose of focusing on the molecular breeding rather than the GM technology; however, in 2015, the GM technology was mentioned by the document again: reinforcing the technology research, safety management and the scientific popularization of the agricultural GM organism.
In the recent years, although the public increasingly concerns the issues of the food safety, there exists huge information asymmetry about the GM technology and GM food among the public, scientific community, and the administrative management department.
Thus, it produced enormous social queries and disputes over the GM crops and food.
The measure of “cautious promoting” this year is quite different from the “reinforcing scientific popularization” of the last year. The new-round of agricultural scientific and technical revolution and the industry reform are on their way. China, with the population of 1.3 billion, cannot fall behind in the field of agricultural biotechnology. That’s why the No.1 Central Document proposed to reinforce the research on the agricultural GM technology and seize the commanding point, according to Han Jun, Vice Director of the Office of Central Rural Work Leading Group.
Han explained that although there are still some disputes over the GM crops around the world, the scale of the commercial plantation is continuously expanding. All the GM crops had been strictly studied, evaluated and tested in terms of the safety issues before they were cultivated, and there’s authoritative conclusion to prove the safety of the GM food; so we can conclude that every GM foods that were been approved for marketing are as safe as the traditionally cultivated foods. China is resolved to stand for the GM technology.
There were very few areas that illegally cultivated the GM rice, therefore the regulation and control over the GM crops should be strengthened; the supervision and law enforcement among this area should be reinforced.
The No.1 Central Document of 2016 has especially emphasized on the research and development of the agricultural GM technologies and the regulations and control of the field so as to avoid the safety concerns.
There are three passes should be strictly guarded—the pass of the research and experiment, the pass of the variety certification and the pass of the production and distribution.
"We must eradicate every possibility of allowing the GM seeds flow into market before the certification at the very beginning. It is comprehensible that the public shows their worries about the GM foods. In addition to reinforcing the work of regulation and control, the government should implement the requirement of mandatory sign of the GM foods and guarantee the public’s right to know and the right of option over the GM foods.” said Han Jun.
*This article is an edited and translated version by CCM. The original article comes from Jiemian.com.
If you need more information about GM technology in China, why not get a free-trial of CCM’s Online Platform? You can get much more information about the whole GM market for FREE!
Access to CCM’s entire resources, literally
Over 180,000 reports, news, data
Across over 15 segment industries
GET FREE TRIAL NOW!
About CCM:
CCM is the leading market intelligence provider for China’s agriculture, chemicals, food & ingredients and life science markets. Founded in 2001, CCM offers a range of data and content solutions, from price and trade data to industry newsletters and customized market research reports. Our clients include Monsanto, DuPont, Shell, Bayer, and Syngenta. CCM is a brand of Kcomber Inc.
For more information about CCM, please visit www.cnchemicals.com or get in touch with us directly by emailingecontact@cnchemicals.com or calling +86-20-37616606.
Tag: GM