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Question

Which foods in China are genetically modified?

Which foods in China are genetically modified?

Submitted by: PaisleyPanda16


Answer

Expert response from Huang Dafang

Research Fellow and former Director of the Biotechnology Research Institute (BRI), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS)

Wednesday, 14/01/2015 12:41

According to the information released by Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, so far there are seven GM crop varieties issued with GMO Safety Certificates for cultivation and production—long-shelf tomato, Bt cotton, color-changed petunia, virus resistant pepper (sweet pepper, chili pepper), virus resistant papaya, Bt rice and phytase corn. However, among the approved crops, only Bt cotton is commercially cultivated in large scale area in China and GM papaya is cultivated in a limited area. The other crops listed above failed to be commercialized for cultivation. Moreover, there are five GM crops – cotton, soybean, corn, canola and sugarbeet -- approved for import as food, feed and processing. In summary, the available GM food in China include papaya, soybean products (mainly cooking oil), corn products, canola products (such as canola oil), cotton products (such as cottonseed oil) and sugar beet products.