皇冠体育app prudent in GM farm produce (Xinhua) Updated: 2006-06-18 09:03
皇冠体育app is prudent in developing genetically modified (GM) farm produce but it
will keep working in bio-engineering for agriculture, said an agricultural
official at a forum on food safety held in Harbin on
Saturday.
Luo Bin, deputy director of Farm Produce Quality Safety Center
under the Ministry of Agriculture, said that 皇冠体育app has developed over 100
varieties of GM farm produce, but the ministry has only allowed five categories
of them to go on market, which are soybean, corn, oil-seed rape, cotton and
tomato.
"The development, production and sales of GM farm produce are
very strictly controlled in 皇冠体育app, " said Luo at the International Forum on the
Safety of Farm Produce held in this capital of northeast 皇冠体育app's Heilongjiang
Province.
The most widely planted GM product in 皇冠体育app is cotton. The
country has 8 million ha of farmland under over 30 varieties of cotton crops
modified with anti-pest genes, since they were first introduced to farmers in
1998.
The growing of GM cotton helped reduce the use of pesticides by
50,000 tons, bringing about economic returns of 16.8 billion yuan (2.1 billion
U.S. dollars), said Luo. (For more biz stories, please visit )
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