It’s China vs. China in GMO Food Fight

It’s China vs. China in GMO Food Fight

China’s fierce public debate on genetically modified food, long a political hot potato in a country obsessed with how to feed its 1.3 billion citizens, has become the subject of a spat between big guns from two of its most powerful governing institutions.

Two weeks ago, a major-general in the People’s Liberation Army took to a popular newspaper to publish (in Chinese) a series of pointed rhetorical questions about Beijing’s policy allowing more trade in genetically modified grains, suggesting that genetically modified organisms, or GMO, are a strategy by which a Western conspiracy to supplant China’s food security is taking shape. GMOs are organisms that have had their genetic blueprint artificially re-engineered; for example, crops altered to become bug-resistant.

“If things change and the West cuts off our grain supply, are 1.3 billion people going to drink the northwestern wind?” Peng Guangqian, who is also deputy secretary-general of China’s National Security Policy Committee, wrote in a column for the nationalist daily Global Times.

On Sunday, the Ministry of Agriculture – which has authority over GMO policy – fired back, posting a question-and-answer transcript (in Chinese) featuring an official from its GMO Security Committee rebutting Mr. Peng point by point. Lin Min, who is also director of the Biotechnology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, flatly rejected Mr. Peng’s claim that “many scientists through experiments have proven GMO food is highly linked to cancer and infertility.”

Mr. Lin also pointed out that the U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of GMO crops and said that as China faces rising strains on its arable land, its use of “foreign resources and market coordination are inevitable.”

“This conspiracy theory is a product of Cold War thinking,” Mr. Lin said, dismissing Mr. Peng’s concerns. “Government-approved GMO food and non-GMO food are equally safe…If GMO research has any benefit, it is first and foremost in the national interest.”

Ministry officials and scholars have raised points similar to Mr. Lin’s in the course of nearly two decades of debate over the advent of GMO food in China. But Mr. Lin’s riposte to Mr. Peng was remarkable for its emphatic tone and invocation of stock phrases – “national interest,” “Cold War thinking” – more often reserved for discussions of defense policy.

The ministry has a sizable stake in the debate. As China’s food demand rises with its affluence, the ministry has increasingly turned to GMO imports to buffer domestic supplies. In June, Beijing added import permits for three kinds of GMO soybeans produced by U.S. giant Monsanto and German chemical producer BASF. Last month, the government approved the first large-scale shipment of GMO corn from Argentina. The ministry has issued permits for every stage of domestic GMO development of China’s major crops except for the final hurdle: commercial production.

Mr. Peng’s essay for the Global Times gives a clue to the ministry’s hesitation. There is a large and rising reservoir of public resistance toward GMO food. China has for more than a decade allowed the use of GMO soybeans, but its move in June to add the three herbicide- and insect-resistant strains from Monsanto and BASF triggered a public firestorm. In July, an official from the soybean association of Heilongjiang, a major agricultural province, made headlines when he told local media that people who consume GMO soy oil were more vulnerable to cancer. There is no scientific consensus on these claims, and Mr. Lin pointed to Western studies that appear to debunk them.

Internet discussion boards, including China’s Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, have long nurtured a hotbed of opposition to GMO’s policy advances. Despite the ministry’s latest riposte to Mr. Peng, the commentary suggests the agriculture ministry has a long way to go in convincing the public on the safety of GMO food – and not least from the top brass in its own military.

“Lin Min supporting Monsanto, that’s nothing new,” wrote a blogger called Lu Yongyan, who appeared based on his Weibo account to also be a PLA general. “If GMO is that good, you should enjoy it together with the Americans, [but] don’t deceive the Chinese people.”

“Those who are advocating for giving the green light to GMO food are all modern traitors and lackeys!” another blogger called Lit Night said. –Chuin-Wei Yap WSJ

INDIA The current debate on GM crops in India is fragmented

Where society meets science

The current debate on GM crops in India is fragmented

Sachin Chaturvedi

The writer is editor, 'Asian Biotechnology and Development Review' and senior fellow, Research and Information System for Developing Countries, Delhi.

With a recent statement in the Lok Sabha on the success of genetically modified crops, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar further polarised the ongoing debate on such crops in India. Though this was not the first time he has aired his views, the platform he chose further confused those trying to understand the eventual policy of the government. The regulation of GM crops is actually with the ministry of environment and forests, which appears dismissive of them. It does not seem to have made an effort to bring the regulatory apparatus (Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, GEAC) back on track, which was thrown into disarray in 2010 when a moratorium on Bt Brinjal was announced by the current minister's predecessor, even though it had been approved by the GEAC. Moreover, the statement has come at a time when all eyes are on the Supreme Court, whose technical expert committee has submitted its report on whether field trials of GM crops can continue.

The current debate on GM crops in India is highly fragmented. Those of us that have been watching the GM debate for the last two decades-plus across different countries are no longer amused. It is quite possible to have different perspectives and ideas about new technologies. Some may oppose them due to apprehensions or reservations, while some may promote them with an eye towards the commercial opportunities they offer.

In his statement, Pawar left no stone unturned to establish the necessity and success of genetic modification. He articulated the Bt cotton success story and called for a "sensible approach" on GM crops. The very next day, certain civil society actors came up with counter-arguments. This is not so different from the debates on nuclear power plants and nano-materials, which only goes to show how urgently India needs to work on establishing a science-society dialogue, so we can rationally respond to technological solutions before the debates take the shape of an anti-technology movement.

It is high time that we, as a society, developed institutional mechanisms for technological assessments where, along with the safety aspects, knowledge streams from the social sciences are brought in to assess social and economic implications. There is the need to explore the social determinants of policymaking in terms of public perceptions of risk and benefit. Basically, this means we ought to explore the ways in which the public influences the policymaking process, so that science and technology policymaking is more ethical and appropriate for society as a whole. This can largely be done through a three-step exercise, that is, cognition, expression and consultation. Cognition enables the public to collect information and identify risks and benefits, and provides the opportunity to consider the ethical concerns related to new technologies. The idea of expression is to create the right platforms for the public to express opinions on new technology. Finally, consultation enables the public to participate in the decision-making phase of policymaking. In this context, it is important to pose certain issues of key significance. What institutions and channels are there to enable or facilitate the public's cognition, expression and consultation? How does public trust in science, and the public perception and literacy of science and technology influence this?

For instance, the agriculture minister mentioned that only a few states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka are open to field trials, and the rest have closed their doors. This requires the three-stage process to reflect on the social context of each region, how local value systems may influence eventual policymaking, and how the social challenges are being faced in different states. This information would have to be complemented with carefully planned public perception surveys, but in some cases, the role of institutions or channels to facilitate the public's cognition by, for example, informing the public about the benefits and risks of technology, is also significant.

In the absence of such mechanisms, we will continue to be vulnerable to sudden outcries on specific products and technologies based on hysteria and ill-informed perceptions. Recently, the Indo-Swiss programme for developing millet crops has made a positive beginning by getting sociologists and economists to work with scientists to explore models that would be the most efficacious. Projects like this may present new models for Indian science and technology policymaking.IE

INDIA Balance Food Security Bill by pushing GM crops

Balance Food Security Bill by pushing GM crops

UPA's calculation that no party would dare to really oppose the populist food security Bill in Parliament has proved correct. The Opposition has bent over backwards to demand that the reach of the Bill be extended! This is despite reams of data showing that the Bill fails the country on two critical counts: alleviating the fiscal deficit and winning the war against malnutrition. Having taken us all back to the 1970s with its vision (wherein satisfaction's lies in subsidised cereals) in the food security Bill, it behoves the UPA to strike a balance by pushing some forward-looking measures for agriculture as well.

Sharad Pawar has been strongly pitching GM crops recently. The agriculture minister's advocacy stands out against an unfortunately hostile backdrop. Since the then environment minister announced a moratorium on the commercial release of Bt brinjal despite the unequivocal approval it had received from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, even field trials of transgenic crops have been in limbo. But what all the scientists backing Pawar, including many from government institutions like Indian Agricultural Research Institute and Indian Council of Agricultural Research, are emphasising is that genetic engineering will be key for India to achieve comprehensive and nutritional security through home-grown foods.

Global strides are well-known. Not only are around 90% of American maize and soybean GM, the US Food and Drug Administration has categorically dec-lared that foods developed by bioengineering techniques do not entail greater safety concerns than those developed by traditional plant breeding. Not only does China`s dining table already boast GM papaya, tomato and bell peppers but GM poplar is now supplying it timber on a commercial scale! In India, Bt cotton has transformed the country from an importer into an exporter. Sure, there are challenges. But our first Green Revolution was not without its opponents and downsides either. Solutions lie in research, testing and betterment, rather than in bans on science.

Another obvious progressive solution lies in scrapping or amending the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act, which makes farmers reliant on middlemen instead of leaving them free to sell their produce to consumers directly. Leakages from the public distribution system, which are estimated at a horrifying high of 40%, are also in urgent need of plugging. Bottom line is that if the UPA has stuck the country with an inefficient and expensive food security Bill in economically challenging times, it must also compensate by facilitating improvements in food production and distribution. Times