regulationofagriculturalgmosinchina.docVIP

Regulation of Agricultural GMOs in China SONG Ying The purpose of this paper is to survey on the regulation of agricultural GMO technologies in China, particularly GM crops and GM food. China is one of the top five principal producers of GM crops, after the United States, Argentina, Canada and Brazil. The potentials of and expectations for such technologies are high but at the same time also mixed. Relevant issues concerning the biosafety and regulation of agricultural GMOs have been brought into light only in the past couple of years. A comparatively more comprehensive administrative framework for regulating GM crops and food was established in 2001. The following survey hopefully serves as an integral part of the whole project of “International Conflict in GMO Regulation – Improving Global Governance of Risk”. I. Overview of the Development of Agricultural GMOs in China The research and development of agricultural GMOs in China started from the mid of 1980s. Due to the nature of China’s central-planned economy, especially the centralized financial system, the research and development of agricultural GMOs in China, unlike that in the developed states where private companies perform most of the agricultural biotechnology research, heavily relied on public funding from the government. From the early 1980s, biotechnology, in general, has been promoted and incorporated into several national research and development programs for science and technology, mainly for the purpose of achieving more rapid economic growth. The most important ones include the “Key Breakthrough Science and Technology Projects” (1982), the establishment of 30 “National Key Laboratories (NKLs) on Biotechnology” (from 1985), the “High Technology Research and Development Plan”(1986, in short term the “863 Program)”, the establishment of “Natural Science Foundation” (1986), the “Special Foundation for Transgenic Plant Research and Commercialization” (1995) and the “Foundation for High-Tech Com