'Better safe than sorry'
Another reason behind the public distrust of GM foods is the lack of an effective supervision and management system or transparency of information, according to Zheng Yujie, a researcher at the Industry Research Center of CIConsulting in Shenzhen. "Although in some other countries, people also have questioned the use of GM foods, the public attitude (in those countries) is generally calm," he said.
The dilemma was highlighted in August 2012, when a group of children from Hunan province, ranging from 6 to 8 years old, were fed "golden" rice as part of an experiment. Crucially however, the researchers failed to obtain the consent of the children's guardians.
The parents were outraged, despite the researchers' insistence that GM rice is rich in beta carotene, a pigment known to be beneficial to eyesight and the immune system, which helps prevent vitamin A deficiency in children.
The incident hampered public recognition of GM foods, even though no proof that GM rice is unsafe has been published. "Because of such incidents, people inevitably have increasing doubts, even in the face of scientific fact. There is poor supervision of the labeling of GM foods, but even when the products are properly labeled, many people tend to avoid them, because of a 'better safe than sorry' mentality," said Lin.
He expressed the hope that an independent third party or the Ministry of Agriculture will conduct experiments and make the results public to dispel some of the public disquiet. One of the most-widespread rumors about GM foods, that they can cause cancer and sterility, was officially denied by the Ministry of Agriculture, which issued a wide range of evidence to back its claims, on Oct 17. Lin described the government's move as "a good start".
As China has already permitted import of five types of GM products - soybeans, corn, oilseed rape, cotton and beets - Jiang Tao called on the public to overcome the fear of genetic modifications. "I, for one, oppose the concept of 'pure and natural'. It's an absurd concept and only means something in aesthetics. In all other areas, it is meaningless," he said.
"We humans actually cannot directly eat pure, natural food, because the vast majority of natural fruits have their own self-protection mechanisms, such as toxins or thorns. The food we humans can eat has evolved simultaneously with us. We have changed the original form of our food for thousands of years now. "
Civilization and crop development
Jiang Taois senior engineer at the Center for Agricultural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Science.
GM is a new stage of agricultural development, and we humans have already gone through several phases. The first phase is collection, the second is planting, and the third is the cultivation of seeds. Now we have come to the new phase that is GM, which is inevitable and independent of man's will. It is the tide of the times, the inevitability of history.
Every stage is a leap forward. During the collection and cultivation stages, humans began to settle into an agricultural lifestyle. Human civilization began to develop because of that. After settlement, humans began to develop the educational and cultural aspects of the social community. This is also the reason that human civilization spread quickly across the same latitude.
The Chinese Silk Road was basically horizontal because crops tend to spread horizontally, because at the same latitude, the climate is relatively similar. However in terms of longitude, it wasn't easy to spread crops, which is why civilization on the American continent lagged behind that of Eurasia.
Civilization on the American continent was vertical, and crops that grew well in Mexico were unable to adapt to Alaska or Chile, proving that civilization is closely linked to agriculture. I believe that we have now entered a new stage of development - the GM stage. We shouldn't stand in the way of development, that would be wrong and we should not try to turn back the clock.
The introduction of corn was the great contribution of Native American Indians. The Chinese contributed rice and millet. During the time of Confucius, millet was the nation's staple food and it was the most important crop to have originated along the banks of the Yellow River. Mesopotamia was the birthplace of wheat.
Every civilization established by the mass plantation of crops has helped the development of humankind. Corn was introduced to China during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). After that, the Chinese population witnessed explosive growth, accounting for approximately 35 percent of the global population. China's GDP at that time accounted for one-third of the global total and the nation's strength hit a new peak. Likewise, we can predict that genetically modified agriculture can help solve the basic food shortages that still torment parts of the world.
A competitive relationship
Xu Lai, chief editor of Guokr, or Nutshell, a popular social networking website for scientists.
Why do we need GM food? Well, take protein for example; the demand for protein is growing, but we don't have an endless supply of soybeans, which are a major source of forage. With regard to protein from animals, the meat, milk and eggs that humans consume require a huge amount of forage to feed all the pigs, chickens and cows.
The protein conversion rate in animals is very low, but chickens have the highest. If a chicken eats 0.9 kg of feed, it can produce 0.5 kg of meat, but a cow needs to consume 5 kg of feed to produce 0.5 kg of meat. As economic conditions have improved, the amount of animal protein in our diet has risen.
The second problem is soybean output. In China, it's more profitable to plant corn than soybeans. The yield rate of corn is higher than that of soybeans. Planting corn results in higher agricultural subsidies because of the high yield. Thus, soybeans and corn are in a competitive relationship. Farmers in the city suburbs prefer to plant fruit and vegetables, and that's why China needs to import several million metric tons of GM soybeans every year. Import volumes are rising, indicating that the amount of arable land in China is becoming insufficient.
