BEIJING: China’s biggest grain-producing province has passed a five-year ban on growing, processing and selling genetically modified crops, in an apparent blow to central government efforts to turn the country into a world beating GMO power. Despite spending billions of dollars on biotech food research, Beijing does not currently permit the cultivation of any GMO crops except for cotton and papaya, amid fierce suspicion from consumers over perceived health risks. The ban announced by China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province comes into effect in May and applies to rice, corn and soybeans. “The black soil of Heilongjiang and its biodiversity needs special protection,” the state-run China News Service cited provincial officials as saying.
The move comes after Beijing in August published plans to develop specific GMO crops including soybeans and corn for the first time. That followed President Xi Jinping’s call for the country to “dominate the high points of GMO techniques” made in a speech released in 2014. Chemchina’s $44bn bid for Switzerland’s Syngenta is also seen as an attempt to boost national prowess in the sector. The ban was prompted by a survey showing more than 90 per cent of respondents in Heilongjiang had objections to GMO crops, the official Xinhua news agency said. It also follows a report by Greenpeace this year that found widespread illegal use of GMO crops among farmers in neighbouring Liaoning province.
“Consumers in China, having experienced a litany of food scandals, are understandably distrustful of regulation around food and agriculture, and this extends to a distrust of genetically modified foods,” said Sam Geall, a research fellow at the University of Sussex’s Science Policy Research Unit. Experts told state media that the ban was out of step with government efforts to gradually increase the use of GMO crops. “The local government lacks foresight as it has rejected any possibility of developing GM technologies in China,” Lu Baorong, a biology professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Global Times newspaper.
Erland Ek, an agriculture researcher at Beijing-based consultancy China Policy, said: “Heilongjiang is particularly important for gaining trust because they would like to protect its advantage as a producer of non-GMO soyabean for the domestic and international market.” China permits the import of GMO soybeans for use in animal feed. The ban “is mainly about protecting local produce and comparative advantage” in response to increasing imports from the US and other countries, Mr Ek added.
