China ramps up efforts to commercialize GM rice

China could soon commercialize GM rice destined for the country's domestic market. Credit: AP Wide World

In the first three months of 2004, China's rice prices have risen 18% higher than on international markets, a trend that is linked to transport bottlenecks and a steady decrease in domestic rice production over the past five years. To remedy such ongoing supply problems, a budget increase for research and field trials of genetically modified (GM) rice varieties since 2001 indicate that the country is forging ahead with their commercialization. China's fear that it will be unable to produce enough rice to support its burgeoning population may impel the country to become the first in the world to approve GM rice.

Although China is currently self-sufficient, rice output has declined 16% between 1999 and 2003, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA; Washington, DC, USA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (Rome). The supply problems triggered a 27% rise in rice prices in China in the first quarter of 2004 compared to the same period last year, according to statistics of China's Ministry of Agriculture (Beijing). By comparison, rice prices rose by only 9.1% on the international markets, such as in Bangkok, during the same time interval. The government thinks that high-output and insect-resistant GM rice varieties may help solve the country's supply problem, according to Jikun Huang, director of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (Beijing).

With steady government backing over the past few years, Chinese researchers have developed several GM rice varieties that are resistant to the country's major rice pests and diseases, such as the lepidopteran insect stem borer, bacteria blight, rice blast fungus and rice dwarf virus. Significant progress has also been made with drought- and salt-tolerant varieties of GM rice, which have been in field trials since 1998. “China [is] technically mature [enough] to commercialize several varieties of its GM rice,” says Zhen Zhu, a leading rice scientist and the deputy director of the Bureau of Life Science and Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; Beijing).

China's biotech budget for 2001–2005 is $1.2 billion, a 400% increase compared with 1996–2000. About $120 million out of the current budget is devoted to GM rice programs, Zhu estimates. The government has also shown its commitment to GM rice by greatly increasing the amount of the 2004 budget allocated to the field trials for GM rice, says Qing Li, chief of the policy department at the China National Center for Biotechnology Development (Beijing). This year, the budget for field trials at the China National Rice Research Institute (CNRRI; Hangzhou)—one of the three key rice institutes in the country—increased by 50% over the past year to reach about $482,000, according to Longbiao Guo, a CNRRI scientist.

And China is expected to launch at least ten new field trials for GM rice this year, keeping the planted area comparable to 2003 levels, during which at least 53 hectares were planted. In comparison, the USDA authorized 10 GM rice field trials over 11 hectares in 2003 and 12 trials over 45 hectares in the first quarter of 2004, 90% of which is done by Monsanto (St Louis, MO, USA).

Given the high cost of fertilizers and pesticides associated with planting traditional crops, many Chinese farmers have turned to cash crops such as eggplants and fruit trees while up to 100 million farmers have given up farming altogether and moved to the cities. Huang believes that by using insect-resistant GM rice varieties, farmers can save up to RMB 190 ($22.9) for each hectare they plant. If China had commercialized GM rice in 2002, Huang says that by 2010 the technology could have brought an estimated $4.2 billion per year by reducing the costs of fertilizer and pesticide, increasing output and easing the labor for farmers.

China's decision to ramp up its production of GM rice could have an impact on other Asian countries like India. “Indian scientists should not sit quiet when China is taking the lead in GM rice,” says Banwari Mishra, director of rice research at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (New Delhi). Despite scaremongering by environmental activists (see Box 1), several Indian research programs are underway to develop homegrown GM technology applicable to local varieties of rice (Nat. Biotechnol. 22, 255–256, 2004).

Box 1: GM rice likely to face little opposition from activists

Activist opposition is strong against many GM crops prominent in global trade, such as corn, wheat and soybeans. And activists have often claimed that transgenes threaten to “contaminate” native germ plasm, like that of corn in Mexico and rice in India. But opposition to GM rice is not so strong globally because the markets with a demand for non-GM products, such as Europe, are not significant importers of rice. So concludes a report “GM rice: will this lead the way for global acceptance of GM crop technology?” published in June 2002 by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (Ithaca, NY, USA). The report shows that 'non-GM' markets account for less than 2.5% of global rice consumption and 4% of global rice trade. In contrast, imports to Europe are more often fragrant rice varieties, such as Thai or Basmati rice, which are unlikely to be targeted by GM technology. SL