China's US$3.5 Billion GM Crops Push

The Chinese government is expected to launch a US $3.5 billion, 13-year research and development (R&D) initiative on genetically modified (GM) crops. "The new initiative will spur commercialization of GM varieties," says Xue Dayuan, chief scientist on biodiversity at the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science of the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Huang Dafang, former director of the Biotechnology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAS), on the other hand, says that the major aim of the initiative is to help China catch up with the West in the race to identify and patent plant genes of great value.

China’s leaders have stood firmly behind transgenic crops. "To solve the food problem, we have to rely on big science and technology measures, rely on biotechnology, and rely on GM," Premier Wen Jiabao told academicians at the annual gathering of the CAS and the Chinese Academy of Engineering last June.

Science magazine reports that although the official budget figure for the initiative has not been released by the central government, half is expected to come from local governments on whose land GM crops will be grown and from agricultural biotechnology companies.

The full article is available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5894/1279?ijkey=wa/cAo0qpxBlI&keytype=ref&siteid=sci