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Row erupts in China over impact of transgenic cotton
Agencies - Beijing

A Chinese government-funded report that alleges genetically-modified Bt cotton strains introduced by US agribusiness giant Monsanto have damaged the environment and provide few long-term agricultural benefits has provoked protest within China’s scientific community.

The report, produced by a State Environment Protection Administration research institute in cooperation with international environment lobby group Greenpeace, argues Monsanto’s Bt cotton has de-establised China’s insect ecology and caused continued farmer reliance on chemical pesticides.

The research study, cited in the official China Daily newspaper, found that genetically-modified Bt cotton, designed to control bollworm, is encouraging the spread of other types of insect pests.

The study by the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences also concluded that cotton bollworm will possibly develop resistance to the genetically modified cotton within eight to 10 years.

“The Chinese government has a role in helping the international community to ensure that corporations such as Monsanto are held liable for the damage they are causing by having developed and released generically modified crops,” a Greenpeace press statement said, referring to the study.

However, meanwhile other Chinese biotechnology researchers have contradicted the report’s findings.

China Academy of Sciences is understood to be currently preparing a paper for China’s leadership that refutes the allegations in the Nanjing study and chastises the State Environment Protection Agency for working with Greenpeace.

The veracity of the Nanjing study was also disputed by the inventor of Chinese Bt cotton, China Academy of Sciences Professor Guo Sandui.

“Greenpeace is absolutely ignorant about genetically-modified cotton and doesn’t know how to protect the environment,” Guo told Dow Jones Newswires. “Through development of GM cotton, we can reduce the use of pesticides by more than 80 per cent and can reduce pesticide poisoning cases by 90 per cent, he said.

The controversy is only the latest to affect China’s attempts to regulate genetically-modified agricultural products and agricultural biotechnology.

Since January, four government ministers in China have implemented or began formulating rules to regulate the import of GMOs. April 1, China banned investment by foreign companies such as Monsanto in joint venture GMO seed development projects.

The study at the centre of the row estimates 1.5 million hectares, or 35 per cent of China’s total cotton crop output, consists of Bt cotton. Two thirds of that Bt cotton has been supplied by Monsanto.

Monsanto’s Beijing office declined direct comment on the report, referring to a report by the director of China’s Centre for Biosafety Research, Mr Peng Yufa, that contradicted the findings of the SEPA/Greenpeace research.