On Jan 17th, the reporter learned from the Agricultural Transgenic Biosafety Administration Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs that the United States recently released an annual report on agricultural biotechnology in relevant countries and regions.
The report points out that the Indian government's approval of GM crops such as mustard and eggplant has not yet been determined, and Bt cotton remains the only biotechnology crop approved for commercial cultivation in India. India has approved imports of GM soybean oil and rapeseed oil as by-products of GM crops. Apart from its limited success in Buffalo cloning research, India is still in its infancy in animal biotechnology research and development.
Pakistan is an important importer, exporter and producer of Biotechnology Crops (mainly cotton), and has established a regulatory system for biotechnology and seeds. Commercialization of GM crops in Pakistan is still limited to the introduction of two GM cottons in 2010.
Canada's GM crops planting area fell by 2% in 2018, mainly due to the reduction of soybean planting area in the three prairie provinces. Since 2017, Canada’s Health Department has approved new genetically modified rapeseed (MS11), apple (NF872), rice (GR2E) and sugarcane (CTC175-A) as food. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has also approved that genetically modified rapeseed and apple can be released into the environment.
Israel has no policy of restricting the use of imported GM products and derivatives. Current regulations stipulate that GM crops cannot be sold without a valid registration certificate. Currently, only GM tobacco has been approved. In addition, Israel allowed the cultivation of genetically modified crops for research purposes, and also allowed the importation of genetically modified products from foreign countries for the production of food and medicines.
Bangladesh is gradually beginning to study and test genetically modified varieties of major trade-based crops such as rice, potatoes, eggplant and cotton. The government supports scientists in this regard, but regulatory policies do not cover all aspects of production and marketing.
In 2017, China's Taiwan region imported more than $1 billion of genetically modified agricultural products from the United States, accounting for more than a third of the total agricultural exports from the United States to Taiwan. At present, Taiwan has not approved the production of genetically modified crops and animals. In addition, Taiwan authorities are discussing how to manage new breeding technologies such as gene editing.
