China has long faced unfavorable food math: It feeds a fifth of the world’s population on a seventh of its available land—and not the world’s most fertile, Beijing often complains. So the question in global agriculture markets has often been, Why not speed up use of genetically modified food?
Part of the answer came Thursday. China is trying to get in the GMO market, but is keener to develop its own technologies to meet rising agriculture demand, the country’s agriculture minister said at the national parliament.
China already allows some GMO imports, including in its sensitive grain category, but not for human consumption—only as animal feed. The population remains skeptical about allowing more.
The minister’s comment possibly explains why it has taken the government so long to approve the commercial distribution of GMO grains domestically—the government appears to be busy working on made-in-China technologies.
Read the full original article: China Seeks Its Own GMO-Food Path
