Skip to main content

China Will Check for Illegal GMOs

China's Ministry of Agriculture has announced a new agricultural GMO biosafety regulatory program that will monitor Chinese rice and corn crops for illegal genetically-modified content. The monitoring will focus on laboratories and research stations developing and testing genetically-modified crops, seed-production farms and manufacturers, and counties where genetically modified rice and corn crops have been planted.


Several months ago, this blog noted the abundant evidence that unapproved genetically-modified grains are planted in China, and it was suggested that authorities should inspect domestic crops with the same rigor they use in rejecting imports with any trace of unapproved GMOs.


Previous crackdowns and rumors seemed to involve illegal sale of genetically-modified grain still in the testing stages, GMOs grown in seed production areas, and widespread planting of genetically modified corn in parts of Liaoning Province. The new program is aimed at those same culprits. Agricultural officials will monitor universities, institutes, and companies, check fields, and take samples from markets for testing. They plan to distribute inexpensive quick-testing kits for testing samples in counties where illegal planting of  genetically modified rice and corn has occurred.


The new program is described as an important task in the Chinese government's "active research, careful dissemination" approach to genetically modified crops.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

China's Vanishing Soybean Self-Sufficiency Rhetoric

Chinese propagandists appear to have given up on soybean self-sufficiency now that China has gained the upper hand over the U.S. on the soybean trade war front. The barrage of Chinese articles about finding soymeal substitutes, low protein animal diets, corn-soy intercropping, etc. has quietly faded from Chinese media. China's plan to bolster soybean self-sufficiency actually failed, but Brazil's bottomless soybean supplies nevertheless enabled China to snub U.S. soybean producers during last year's trade war. Xi Jinping now is free to make offers of soybean purchases to President Trump in trade negotiations without appearing to do so from a weak position. Mission accomplished, but not in the way Chinese strategists planned. Back in 2019--at the height of the first U.S.-China trade war--China's "Number 1 Document" announced a "soybean revitalization plan" to increase self-sufficiency in soybeans. Soybeans were pronounced to have strategic significanc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Xi Jinping's Doctoral Thesis

Xi Jinping is the vice president and presumed next president of China but little is known about him. In this post the dimsums blog offers its contribution to the genre of Xi Jinping-ology by conveying Xi's decade-old views on agricultural markets. Ten years ago Xi Jinping wrote a thesis, "Tentative Study of Agricultural Marketization" (中国农村市场化研究) for a Doctor of Law degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a top breeding-ground for Chinese officials. The dimsums blogger has spent several hours poring over the 200-plus page tome to see what it reveals about Dr. Xi. The thesis is remarkably close to what China has been doing lately in agricultural policy, suggesting that Xi (or the person who actually wrote the thesis) has a major say in policy or is at least in agreement with what's being done. There is nothing adventurous, controversial (or insightful) in the thesis. It seems to be the work of a wonkish technocrat who is not prone to talk out of turn or wander from...
17 comments
Read more

Divergence in U.S. & Chinese egg prices

High egg prices are a hot topic in the United States. China, in contrast, has a glut of eggs and depressed prices.  The March 14, 2025 USDA Agricultural Marketing Service weekly eggs market overview reported that U.S. egg prices continued declining during the second week of March as the supply situation improved. No significant highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks have occurred in March and U.S. egg demand is relatively light. The average U.S. wholesale price for Grade A large white eggs was $4.15 per dozen, down sharply from their February peak.  Until 2021, Chinese and U.S. wholesale egg prices had been roughly equal at about $1-to-$2 per dozen with no trend. U.S. prices fluctuated more than Chinese prices, so the U.S. price was sometimes higher, sometimes lower than the Chinese price after converting them to dollars per dozen.  Chinese prices converted using monthly exchange rate and assuming 0.6 kg per dozen. Sources: USDA and China Ministry of Agricult...
3 comments
Read more