Policy is unclear and public opinion is not good. Who lost the battle of genetically modified organisms?

The public, with an instinctive fear of unknown food, wants absolute safety assurance at a time when food safety accidents are high, but the scientific community cannot give them-absolutely safe food does not exist.

In the words of Zhang Kai, a researcher of genetically modified rice, a professor at Huazhong Agricultural University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, "a very beautiful girl became an old woman while waiting for GM approval."

Since genetically modified cotton was approved for planting in 1997, not a single important crop has been approved for planting in China in the following 17 years.

August 17, 2014 is an important deadline, when all three GM crop safety certificates expire. This is the only GM food safety certificate in China, two GM rice for food and one GM corn for feed. These three safety certificates issued in 2009 were once regarded as a place of hope by the GM industry, and the door to GM commercialization may be opened from then on. Five years later, not only is commercialization a long way off, but three certificates expire after doing nothing.

Of course, the owner of the security certificate can apply for renewal. Huazhong Agricultural University, which holds two safety certificates for GM rice, submitted its application materials in June 2014. The Ministry of Agriculture's response is ambiguous: it is under review and will continue to issue if safety issues are not shown. However, "whether and when to send it depends on the progress of the review process."

The whole industry is aware of the high-level statement: bold research, careful promotion. However, no one knows where the degree of "caution" is.

This seems to suggest that GM technology is in a worse position in China than ever before.

The policy is unclear, which will hit GM R & D companies even harder. It is one of the earliest Oruijin companies to carry out research and development of transgenic technology in China, and it is even difficult to find land where transgenic experiments can be carried out.

"as long as it is said to arrange genetically modified experiments, it is like hearing about growing opium at the local level: we can't move genetically modified things!" Han Gengchen, founder and chairman of Oruijin, said.

The EU, at a cost of 260 million pounds, supported risk assessments of more than 50 GM safety projects conducted by 400 independent research teams and concluded that there is no evidence that GM crops that pass national safety assessments pose higher risks to food and environmental safety than traditional crops. Genetically modified crops may even be safer than traditional crops and food because of more precise technologies and stricter regulation.

In the past 20 years, similar statements have been made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the United States Department of Agriculture, FDA and other agencies.

No matter how many scientists and authorities endorse it, they can't dispel the public's doubts about GM. In the words of Lin Min, director of the Institute of Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, "the environment of public opinion cannot be worse."

New challenge

In the context of the radical opposition, GM is an evil technology, causing cancer, sterilization, poisoning the land, subjugation and extinction.

The United States has been commercializing what radical opponents call "evil" technology for 18 years. Today, 93% of corn, 94% of soybeans and 96% of cotton in the United States are genetically modified; 70% and 80% of marketed packaged foods contain genetically modified ingredients.

"over the past 18 years, billions of families have been eating genetically modified crops for a long time. Genetically modified food has not been found to cause disease or other problems," Xu Zhihong, a biologist, former president of Peking University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at a seminar on GM held jointly by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Sciences in Wuhan on Oct. 17.

But the worry is, can security now represent security 50 or even 100 years from now? What about the risks that cannot be identified scientifically?

The public, with an instinctive fear of unknown food, wants absolute safety assurance at a time when food safety accidents are high, but the scientific community cannot give them-absolutely safe food does not exist.

The assurance given by the current scientific community is that GM food approved by various countries and obtained safety certificates is as safe as traditional food.

Kevin Ross, a sixth-generation farmer, planted genetically modified soybeans and corn on 600 acres in Iowa, leaving a small plot of land for genetically modified sweet corn for his own consumption. During the summer corn ripening season, Kevin's wife, Sarah, goes straight to the field to break some corn, which her two sons and Hudson and Aston love to eat.

After the harvest season, Sarah would peel off the corn kernels, put them in water, add a little butter, a little sugar and a little salt, boil them on the stove for five minutes, then put them in a bag and freeze them. She left two squares in the freezer for the corn so she could eat it for a whole year.

In the United States, a proponent of GM technology and the biggest beneficiary, the GM industry is also facing a thorny challenge.

According to a Washington journalist, there are as many as 300 opposition groups in the United States. Among them, most groups are not professional in the reversal movement, but the demand for reversal is just related to their demands, such as advocating organic, advocating animal welfare and opposing the monopoly of large companies. In the GM industry, the monopoly of large companies on the market is particularly obvious.

All these have created resistance to the GM industry. Katherine Enwhite, executive vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, for example, "between 1996 and 2002, it only took six months for the Department of Agriculture to approve a genetically modified crop. Since 2006, the time has been extended to 2 to 5 years. "

The USDA Biotechnology Coordinator revealed that this is because the reversal group has repeatedly filed lawsuits asking developers to respond to questions from all parties.

What worries the industry even more is the discussion and referendum on the labelling of GMOs.

In 2012, California launched a referendum on mandatory labelling of GM foods, setting off a heated discussion on mandatory labeling of GM foods in the United States. According to the current law, GM foods in the United States are labelled voluntarily, but no producer will take the initiative to label them.

The referendum ended in defeat, as did the 2013 Washington state referendum on mandatory labeling of genetically modified genes. Even for wealthy Americans, the purse determines everything. Consumers in California do not want prices to rise as a result of mandatory labeling of genetically modified products. It is estimated that if a mandatory labelling system is implemented for GM products, each California family will spend an additional $400 a year on food.

But 30 other states followed suit, introducing bills against GM. Connecticut and Maine won limited victories: when three northeastern states passed similar laws with a total population of more than 20 million, the state's GM labelling bill came into effect.

In the view of the GM industry, mandatory labelling is more like a strategy to reverse groups, aimed at strengthening public mistrust of GMOs. Michael, a science journalist who writes for the New Yorker, is also worried that this is to "completely ban GM technology." He said in the article that although such a thing is reckless and futile in the United States, it will affect the research of scientists around the world.

Good times

There was a short good time in the transgenic world in China.

In 2008, GM, as the only project in the agricultural field, together with large aircraft, entered 16 medium-and long-term major science and technology projects. This major special project is planned to invest 24 billion yuan within 15 years. This means that it will be the most funded agricultural science and technology project in history.

The government's goal is clear: to improve the overall level of agricultural GMO research and industrialization and the international competitiveness of agriculture.

Under this incentive, transgenic crops such as insect-resistant corn, virus-resistant wheat, herbicide-resistant corn and drought-resistant wheat have entered the stage of environmental release or production trials.

Han Gengchen recalls that it was then that O'Ruijin began to increase its investment in GM research and development, tens of millions of dollars a year. In a good year, this accounts for half of the profits. In a bad year, almost all profits will be invested in GM research and development.

Han Gengchen sees this technology as the future of agriculture. His former employer, Vanguard, used to be the leader in the planting market, but was caught up by Monsanto in the biotechnology wave and was acquired by DuPont in 1999.

Many farmers like new technology. In the United States, genetically modified soybeans account for more than 90% of soybean acreage in just five years.

After earning a bachelor's degree in agriculture from the University of Iowa, Kevin returned to his farm and worked as a grower for 16 years. He hopes to better pass on the land to the next generation. Therefore, Kevin does not like to use too many pesticides and chemicals, which not only increases the cost, but also bad for the soil. Herbicide-resistant GM crops saved him from having to spend as much as his father and grandfather on managing weeds in the fields, and made it easier for the no-tillage method he supported to protect the soil.

Nancy of Wisconsin has been growing for 34 years and runs 2100 acres of land. She has grown genetically modified corn, genetically modified soybeans and non-GM wheat (there are no commercial GM varieties of wheat). Twenty years ago, when she was young, she had to wear special protective clothing, gloves and glasses before she dared to spray all kinds of herbicides and pesticides.

Genetically modified technology and agricultural mechanization make her job easier. Just press a few buttons in the monitoring room and spray glyphosate, a low-toxic and effective herbicide, to get rid of all weeds. For crops with insect-resistant genes, there is little need to spray pesticides.

The heated debate over safety has almost forgotten the original purpose of scientists in developing GM technology: to solve agricultural problems, not to increase them.

Scientists have introduced insect-resistant genes into crops to reduce the use of pesticides; herbicide-resistant genes have been introduced to make it easier for farmers to work in the fields and to reduce the use of highly toxic herbicides Other characteristics being studied, such as drought and flood resistance, are designed to grow crops on barren land and reduce the pressure on arable land to feed nearly 10 billion people around the world by the middle of the century.

Like traditional technology, transgenic technology also needs to fight against the resistance of weeds and pests. No creature in nature will sit back and wait for death. The emergence of resistance does not mean the failure of technology. There is no technology to solve all the problems in agriculture once and for all.

As ecologist Stuart Brand said in the Law of the Earth, opponents of genetic engineering suspect that genetically modified organisms will cause ecological damage, which is a reasonable doubt. Because all crops cause ecological damage. So the question becomes: do genetically modified crops cause more ecological damage or contribute to the ecology than traditional crops?

Between 1996 and 2012, global use of 503 million kg of pesticides and 203 million kg of herbicides was reduced as a result of the use of GM technology, and the environmental impact of herbicides and pesticides decreased by 18.7 per cent, according to PGEconomics, a UK consultancy.

Han Gengchen graduated from Iowa State University in the late 1980s and received a doctorate in plant genetics and breeding. Although he studied traditional breeding, he chose GM technology as his entrepreneurial direction and founded O'Ruijin. He is convinced of the potential of GM technology as a very effective tool, though not the only one, for solving agricultural problems.

In 2007, Han Gengchen partnered with the Institute of Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to buy genetically modified phytase corn, and in 2009, purchased herbicide-resistant and insect-resistant corn for commercial development.

Although Oruijin has not brought a penny of profit to Oruijin since its establishment more than a decade ago, Han Gengchen is confident that he has been using the income of the traditional breeding industry to subsidize the research and development of GM technology.

In 2009, when GM phytase corn received a safety certificate, Oruijin's share price on Nasdaq multiplied several times and rose 300% in six trading days. Han Gengchen announced optimistically that China's first genetically modified corn would be commercialized within two years.

Equally optimistic is the Dabei Nong Company, where the Biotechnology Center established in 2010 almost copied a complete set of platforms and teams from large foreign companies. According to the company, it plans to invest 500 million to 800 million yuan between 2010 and 2015. For relatively weak Chinese companies, this is not a small expense.

But along with the safety certificate, it is not the rolling profits, but the overwhelming doubts. Genetically modified rice, in particular, stirs up the fragile nerves of the public: why should 1.3 billion people be mice? Why give it to people if the bugs don't eat? Why is only China keen to commercialize genetically modified staple grains?