GM (Genetically Modified) food technology

[Shotgunner51]

U.S. Approval of Syngenta Deal Brings GMO Food a Step Closer to China
Charlie Campbell / Beijing @charliecamp6ell
Aug. 23, 2016

View attachment 329242
A sack of Syngenta AG bean seeds on a farmer's field near Johannesburg on Feb. 4, 2016

But a raft of food-safety scandals has made the Chinese public extremely wary of genetically modified crops

On Monday, China National Chemical Corp. (ChemChina) received approval from U.S. national-security officials for its $43 billion takeover of Swiss agrochemical company Syngenta AG. Although the deal still needs to be reviewed by antitrust regulators worldwide, getting the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) the green light was seen as the final hurdle for what looks like the biggest Chinese overseas acquisition of all time. Syngenta shares jumped 10% upon the news. “The proposed transaction is expected to close by the end of the year,” read a statement by the Basel-based firm, which has 28,000 employees in over 90 countries.

The deal has been controversial in the U.S. for national-security implications. “The fact that a [Chinese] state-owned enterprise may have yet another stake in U.S. agriculture is alarming,” said Iowa Senator Charles Grassley. But the deal has arguably been more controversial in China: Syngenta has pioneered the manufacture of genetically modified (GMO) crops, and ChemChina’s interest is seen as spurred by the Beijing government eyeing Syngenta’s valuable GMO-seed patents. However, the Chinese public remains vehemently against GMO. A recent survey in the state-backed China Daily revealed 84% of respondents consider GMO unsafe. It remains illegal for locally grown food.

The Chinese government has launched a massive propaganda offensive to change this. On paper, it is easy to see why: GMO could solve many of Chinese agricultural problems, especially in the arid, freezing north. Chinese farmers are generally poorly trained and work tiny, family plots, overusing fertilizers and pesticides to the point in which land is degraded and water supplies contaminated. In 2007, farmers in southern China’s Guangdong province spread 310 kg of fertilizer per acre, according to the World Bank — six times that was used in the U.S. Experts believe 60%-70% was wasted and ended up polluting water supplies. Despite education programs encouraging farmers to use fewer chemicals, today four out of five underground wells in China produce water unfit even for bathing. As such, the lure of innately high-yield and pest-resistant GMO crops isn’t going away.

China began heavily investing in GMO technology in the 1980s, and has around 10,000 state-employed scientists working on the topic today. At Beijing’s Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, dozens of white coats crowd over petri dishes, seeking to isolate and extract genes that can make crops frost-resistant or thrive on less rain. “Traditional farming has many limitations in China,” says Professor Huang Dafang, who has spent three decades developing GMO. “And climate change has really impeded the development of agriculture in recent years.”

Yet the Chinese public still equates GMO with previous food-safety scares. In recent years, consumers have faced abominations such as cadmium-laced rice, fake eggs and infant formula tainted with the toxic chemical melamine — a scandal that killed six babies and left 300,000 ill. As such, the Chinese Communist Party lacks the necessary social capital to persuade its citizens that GMO is benign. Allegations by the environmental group Greenpeace that GMO crops had been illegally planted in the country’s northeast have further agitated a public wary of stealthy tampering with their food. “The scale of [GMO] contamination is truly shocking,” said Li Yifang, head of Food and Agriculture Campaign.

In many ways, though, GMO has already arrived to China: a large percentage of the soya beans imported are genetically modified, while the vast majority of locally grown cotton — employing more than 6.6 million farmers — is also GMO. But that has not swayed the public. On July 17, Huang was harangued at a public forum on GMO by protesters calling him a “traitor.” It was not the first time. Public figures, like former China Central Television anchor and political adviser Cui Yongyuan, continue to rile against GMO in blog posts. Last week, a Beijing court agreed to hear a lawsuit filed by parents about the alleged use of GMO oil at a school canteen. And reaction to the U.S. regulatory thumbs up did not hint at a softening of stances. “This is an obituary for the Chinese nation,” posted one user to China’s Twitter-like microblog Weibo.

For the Chinese government, CFIUS approval may not be the final hurdle after all.

— With reporting by Zhang Chi and Yang Siqi / Beijing

The industry is consolidating fast, after ChemChina-Syngenta, now Bayer-Monsanto.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...-to-buy-monsanto/ar-BBw8vxK?OCID=ansmsnnews11
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/14/investing/monsanto-bayer-takeover-biggest-deal/index.html

 

[ahojunk]

266 hectares of transgenic corn stripped in southwestern China
(People's Daily Online) 16:18, September 21, 2016

Yulin, Shaanxi province recently saw the removal of more than 266 hectares of corn.

The corn was uprooted after it was found to contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients.

The local agricultural department sampled the corn and discovered GM ingredients in mid-August. According to Zhang Chunmei, one of the farmers whose corn crop was uprooted, the management department told the affected farmers to remove all their GM crops before the end of the month; otherwise, the corn would be removed forcibly.

By mid-September, more than 266 hectares of corn crops were eradicated. The farmers said they purchased their corn seeds from a dealer named Liu Zhenguo, but claimed not to know that the seeds were transgenic until the truth was discovered by the agricultural department.

Authorities promised the farmers 1,400 yuan in compensation for every 0.067 hectares of crops they were made to destroy. However, one farmer, Fang Shijun, complained that the compensation wasn't enough to cover their losses.

Many farmers are bitter in the wake of this incident, believing that the agricultural department should have come to them sooner with concerns about the GM corn, allowing the farmers time to grow other plants and reduce their losses.

Currently, only a few breeds of GM corn are allowed to be planted in China - and those only for research purposes. Any commercial planting of GM corn is illegal. Liu, the seed dealer named in this case, has been arrested by police.

 

[dingyibvs]

There are some concerns about GM foods, but safety to human beings isn't one of them. There's simply no scientific evidence suggesting that GM foods is dangerous to humans. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Our bodies don't absorb whole DNAs, they break them down and make use of the components of the DNA. GM foods are made of the same 4 nucleic acids that make up all DNA, they're just arranged different. Why would that affect human health? We're still getting the same nucleic acids. This isn't like proteins where we absorb and make use of whole proteins or large portions at a time.

Is taking a bite of a cabbage before taking a bite of tomato different from taking a bite of tomato first?

As a side note, this is why democracy doesn't work. The general public simply doesn't comprehend the intricacies behind these very complex decisions, yet they don't hesitate to make up and express their opinions. I heard the same spiel about GMO from my uncle, who blamed it for the high rate of cancer in China. I remember thinking, I'm an U.S.-trained medical doctor, you run a water company, yet you feel qualified to lecture me about the pros and cons of GMO and risk factors for cancer which clearly in China is dominated by smoking and pollution? Makes me just wanna shake my head.

 

[Sanchez]

Most people have no idea about how humans absorb nutritions of various food.Why do folks jump so high on the issue? What's exactly your problem with GM of food?

 

[Jlaw]

There are some concerns about GM foods, but safety to human beings isn't one of them. There's simply no scientific evidence suggesting that GM foods is dangerous to humans. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Our bodies don't absorb whole DNAs, they break them down and make use of the components of the DNA. GM foods are made of the same 4 nucleic acids that make up all DNA, they're just arranged different. Why would that affect human health? We're still getting the same nucleic acids. This isn't like proteins where we absorb and make use of whole proteins or large portions at a time.

Is taking a bite of a cabbage before taking a bite of tomato different from taking a bite of tomato first?

As a side note, this is why democracy doesn't work. The general public simply doesn't comprehend the intricacies behind these very complex decisions, yet they don't hesitate to make up and express their opinions. I heard the same spiel about GMO from my uncle, who blamed it for the high rate of cancer in China. I remember thinking, I'm an U.S.-trained medical doctor, you run a water company, yet you feel qualified to lecture me about the pros and cons of GMO and risk factors for cancer which clearly in China is dominated by smoking and pollution? Makes me just wanna shake my head.

There isn't any evidence that consuming GM food is good for you. In fact, people in N. America pay a premium for non GM food. That say a lot about gM food

Most people have no idea about how humans absorb nutritions of various food.Why do folks jump so high on the issue? What's exactly your problem with GM of food?

in the old days, radioactive substances were used in make up remover, some face cream. Heroin was once thought to have helped with cough.

 

[dingyibvs]

There isn't any evidence that consuming GM food is good for you. In fact, people in N. America pay a premium for non GM food. That say a lot about gM food


in the old days, radioactive substances were used in make up remover, some face cream. Heroin was once thought to have helped with cough.

That says nothing about GM food. I work as a doctor in the U.S., I know exactly the amount of healthcare misconceptions out there. A good 20-30% of the patients in my practice decline the flu shot, because apparently getting the dead viral particles give them the flu, and there's nothing you can convince them otherwise. They get the flu shot once during the winter, then catch an unrelated cold a few days/weeks later, and bam, the flu shot made them sick. The flu kills more people EVERY SINGLE YEAR in the U.S. than terrorists have EVER killed in the history of this country, yet people are so afraid of terrorists that they're willing to ban millions of innocent Muslims but won't take a free flu shot. Makes me just wanna shake my head.

In the old days, antibiotics were thought to cure infections and vaccines were thought to prevent diseases...oh wait, they still do. Science isn't perfect, we don't always move forward, but for every step we go back we leap forward by two. Some may want to stick to the old days, I'll take my chances with science.

 

[Götterdämmerung]

I work as a doctor in the U.S...

In other words, the more people eat crap, the more they get sick and the more you profit.

 

[Jlaw]

That says nothing about GM food. I work as a doctor in the U.S., I know exactly the amount of healthcare misconceptions out there. A good 20-30% of the patients in my practice decline the flu shot, because apparently getting the dead viral particles give them the flu, and there's nothing you can convince them otherwise. They get the flu shot once during the winter, then catch an unrelated cold a few days/weeks later, and bam, the flu shot made them sick. The flu kills more people EVERY SINGLE YEAR in the U.S. than terrorists have EVER killed in the history of this country, yet people are so afraid of terrorists that they're willing to ban millions of innocent Muslims but won't take a free flu shot. Makes me just wanna shake my head.

In the old days, antibiotics were thought to cure infections and vaccines were thought to prevent diseases...oh wait, they still do. Science isn't perfect, we don't always move forward, but for every step we go back we leap forward by two. Some may want to stick to the old days, I'll take my chances with science.

When doctors prescribe drugs to patients, in most cases the drugs themselves can cause more damage than the symptom a patient has! Though I'm not a doctor, I rather eat healthy, exercise, avoid big pharma drugs as much as possible .

When I get sick I use TCM instead. I'm not saying I will never use pharma drugs, but if I could avoid it, I will.

 

[dingyibvs]

When doctors prescribe drugs to patients, in most cases the drugs themselves can cause more damage than the symptom a patient has! Though I'm not a doctor, I rather eat healthy, exercise, avoid big pharma drugs as much as possible .

When I get sick I use TCM instead. I'm not saying I will never use pharma drugs, but if I could avoid it, I will.

Well, I agree with your approach, though not your reasoning. Yes, you should eat healthy, exercise, and avoid pharma drugs as much as possible. For example, my girlfriend just came down with a fever, the doctor at her employee health center prescribed her penicillin. She's not gonna be taking it. We're both doctors and we think her diagnosis of "strep throat" is very sketchy and she mostly went to document her fever so she can justify not going to work.

With that said, the academia has largely been able to keep its integrity, it helps that they don't get paid by the profit hospitals make, so critical reviews of literature can still reveal the truth.

I can see where you're coming from though, working in this industry, it just happens way too often where tests and treatments are prescribed where they're not needed. Unfortunately, what Götterdämmerung said is true, we work in a system where such behavior is not only tolerated, but encouraged. For example, I work for a well respected private institution in New York, and our Emergency Department is always packed. They make it so that in order to admit a patient, all the ED doctor has to do is to click his mouse a few times. Given how overworked they are, they're tempted by the system to "decompress" the ED by admitting as many patients as the hospital can fit. So what ends up happening is that a lot of people who don't need to be admitted gets admitted, and of course they get discharged very quickly because they never needed to be admitted in the first place and because the administration puts significant pressure on every member of the treatment team to discharge quickly. This increases turnover in the hospital, which means higher profits. This is because the hospital gets paid a certain amount of money for a certain disease, so the sicker you can make the patient sound and the quicker you can get him/her out of the hospital safely, the more money the hospital makes.

You can't even blame the hospital either. With all that shennanigans you'd think my institution would be making bank. It's not. It operates on a razor-thin profit margin, and mostly makes money by volume, which it can do because it's buying up all the surrounding hospitals as they go bankrupt one by one. The whole damn system is broken.

/rant

 

[ahojunk]

I have deleted the off-topic posts.
Please stay on topic.

========
Ministry halts operation at transgenetic test center over violations
2016-09-23 12:41 | Ecns.cn | Editor: Mo Hong'e


(ECNS) -- The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has halted operations at a national testing center for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) after investigators found the center in violation of management rules during its preparations for a qualification review by the ministry last year.

The ministry said in a post on its website Thursday that it probed into the alleged fabrication of documents at the center reported by Hao Jingliang, a former doctoral student, on Zhihu.com, and discovered violations by the center in their preparation of materials, archive management and employment of personnel.

The ministry made a decision to suspend the center's operation and allow a six-month grace period to make corrections and improvements, and to revoke its qualification certificate if it fails to meet standards by the end of the grace period.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences was told to seriously punish those responsible for the violations.

The Beijing-based center for safety supervision, inspection and testing of transgenetic animals and feed, better known as the national test center for GMOs, was built based on resources at the Institute of Animal Sciences (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences).

The center was accredited as a ministerial-level transgenetic inspection and testing agency for GM animals and feed, to ensure that they were environmentally safe.

From July 20 to 22, 2015, the ministry sent an expert panel to review the center's qualifications. To be fully prepared, from May to July, a few months ahead of the inspection, the center made up for missing archives that ranged from personnel training to usage of materials and devices, as well as meeting minutes, investigators found.

Also, during the 2015 review, four graduate students were hired to serve as the center's inspectors and archivists. Some of the testing tasks during an on-the-spot review session were carried out by graduate students in the name of the center's inspectors, which violated rules of personnel management, the ministry said.

However, the ministry did not find any fabrications in the testing processes or data.

The ministry said it only entrusted the center to conduct two experimental testing tasks in December 2011, and that the center carried out both indoor and outdoor tests according to a plan passed by experts. It issued reports in October 2015, which were backed by records of testing processes and data, therefore there were no fabrication problems, the ministry explained. However, the center did not give the original records to archivists for further management, it was added.

So far, the center has never issued any testing reports on GM products that have been granted safety certificates, the ministry said.

 

[ahojunk]

Police unveil progress of unlicensed GM corn seeds
2016-10-08 20:40:06 CRIENGLISH.com Web Editor: Huang Shan

An undated photo shows the genetically modified maize fields in
Jingbian County, Shaanxi Province. [Photo: 163.com]​

This August, a case of genetically modified corn seeds triggered hot public attention, as over 3638 mu (598 acres) of unlicensed GM maize fields in Shaanxi Province was weeded out compulsively.

Police officials in Jingbian County of Yulin City recently unveiled more details of their investigation progress.

Liu Zhenguo, a broker, is accused of selling and distributing unlicensed seeds worth 100,000 yuan (15,000 USD).

He has confessed he knew the seeds were genetically modified, but he did not disclose this to the intermediaries or farmers at the time of sale.

The 51-year-old has been selling standard seeds for the past 20 years, but he admitted that this year he transferred over 10,000 GM corn seeds to Jingbian County's planting fields through several acquaintances.

He also planted more than 500 mu GM maize fields in the neighboring Inner Mongolia, which output surpassed 100,000 kilograms.

Liu sold the rest of the illegal seeds to China's northeastern regions.

According to a preliminary estimate, local farmers have suffered an economic loss of few million yuan.

A Shaanxi Province's Agriculture Department official told Chinanews.com there were two reasons the maize fields were eradicated.

Firstly, the seeds were planted without the approval of the local administrative department in charge of agriculture, a violation to China's Seed Law.

Secondly, the Regulations on Genetically Modification were not adhered to, as GM plants are strictly controlled by the state. According to provisions, China allows qualified GM imports, but they can only be used in production and processing.

The local government pledged to recover the farmer's economic loss and compensate each mu for 1,400 yuan.

 

[ahojunk]

NE China province to ban GM crops
2016-12-17 09:14 | Xinhua | Editor: Li Yan

Farmers in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, China's top grain producer, will be prohibited from growing Genetically Modified (GM) crops, according to a provincial regulation passed on Friday.

The regulation will become effective on May 1, 2017.

Growing of GM corn, rice and soybean will be banned, while illegal production and sales of GM crops and supply of their seeds will also be prohibited.

The new regulation also bans illegal production, processing, sale and imports of edible GM farm produce or edible farm products that contain GM ingredients. It requires all GM food be sold in a special zone, clearly indicated in stores.

The decision comes after 91.5 percent of responses in a survey in the province in October raised objections to GM crops.

"We support the research and development of transgenetic technology, but we should be cautious in applying the techniques in crop production," said Yao Dawei, director of the provincial legislature.