China is causing consternation and puzzlement by detecting and rejecting genetically modified material in food shipments from trading partners from trading partners who claim that they don't grow GM crops. Chinese inspectors have rejected 146 shipments for containing GM material in the first half of 2026, up from a trickle in earlier years. More interesting is that Chinese inspectors have found GMOs in shipments of rapeseed oil, rice, flour, and soybean foods Compiled from China Administration of Customs. Earlier this year, this blog reported that Chinese inspectors had reported 74 GMO-containing shipments of rapeseed oil from Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus--countries that banned GMO crop production. At least one Kazakh exporter protested that it had verified that there was no GMO material in exports destined for China. Despite having suspended several Kazakh and 8 Russian rapeseed oil exporters, China rejected another 27 rapeseed oil shipmen...
Retired USDA economist Fred Gale peers through the "dim sums" of puzzling data to provide insight about China's agricultural markets in bite-size pieces like Chinese "dim sum" snacks. See the Archive and Labels for posts on various topics going back to 2008.