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Wall Street worried over China Bt cotton problems
Row erupts in China over impact of transgenic cotton
A Chinese government-funded report that alleges genetically
modified Bt cotton strains introduced by US agribusiness giant Monsanto (MON)
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 environmental lobby group Greenpeace,
argues Monsanto’s Bt cotton has destabilised 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 (genetically modified) crops,”
a Greenpeace press statement said, referring to the study. However the report’s
findings have been contradicted by other Chinese biotechnology researchers.
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 controversy is only the latest to affect China’s attempts to regulate
genetically modified agricultural products and agricultural biotechnology.
Since January, four government ministries in China have implemented or began
formulating rules to regulate the import of genetically modified organisms,
or GMOs. On 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 Center for Biosafety Research,
Peng Yufa, that contradicted the findings of the SEPA/Greenpeace research.
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,” Mr 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.
Source: Dow Jones Newswires
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