The Chinese government is trying to convince Zhou Guangxiu that the corn in the congee she wants to feed her son is safe. That may not be easy.
Zhou, the owner of a recycling business in the northeast coastal city of Weihai, said one source of her concern was an anonymous article shared online by her friends that alleges genetically modified crops cause infertility in Asians, part of a U.S. ploy against China. She fears her 21-year-old son won’t have his own family if she feeds him the corn-meal porridge.
“I definitely won’t let my son eat it,” Zhou said by telephone. “It’s not just me. All our friends are worried. All the corn grown now is genetically modified.”
China, the world’s most-populous country and the biggest consumer of rice, soybeans and wheat, has begun a campaign to push genetically modified organisms as it seeks to expand food supplies. While no domestic grain crops are bioengineered, President Xi Jinping has endorsed the technology used to boost output everywhere from the Americas to Africa. China’s Ministry of Agriculture said Sept. 28 it would use media, seminars and street advertising to combat the perceived risks.
Meat consumption has surged in China as the economy expanded almost six-fold over the past decade and incomes rose. That led to an increase in livestock herds and demand for feed. The nation is already the biggest soybean buyer and will become the top corn importer by about 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. Most of its overseas supplies are produced from seed genetically engineered to grow with certain traits, like killing pests or tolerating herbicides.
‘Controversial Views’
“There has been a lot of opposition against GMO in China not based on science, which, if left unchecked, can weaken government support for the development of biotechnology,” Li Qiang, chairman of Shanghai JC Intelligence Co., the country’s largest independent agriculture market researcher, said by telephone from Shanghai on Oct. 7. “The agriculture ministry probably feels compelled to do some education.”
Because the technology is new, “it’s reasonable that society should hold controversial views and doubts,” Xi told the Communist Party conference on rural works last December, the Beijing Evening News reported on Sept. 28. China should ensure biotechnology is safe and should not allow foreign companies to control the market for gene-modified products, he said.
‘Very Big Problem’
The concern among some Chinese consumers about genetically modified grains dovetails with broader worries about food safety. Fears have been fanned by high-profile incidents, including rice found with cancer-causing heavy metals; rat, fox and mink sold as mutton; cooking oil salvaged from sewers; and baby formula laced with chemicals. About 41 percent of Chinese consumers in a 2012 Pew Research Center survey considered food safety a “very big problem,” up from 12 percent in 2008.
The state-led campaign to promote GMOs comes at a time when meat has become a popular choice at meals, requiring more corn, wheat and soybeans to feed livestock. China is the world’s largest pork consumer, ranks second in chicken demand, and trails only the U.S. and Brazil in beef, USDA data show.
In December, the country announced a new food-security strategy that will allow “moderate” grain imports for feed, while maintaining self-sufficiency in wheat and rice, a break from previous policies to ensure the nation grows 95 percent of the corn, wheat and rice it needs, according to an April report by the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
More Meat
Per-capita demand for corn more than doubled in the past two decades, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Beef consumption in China, which the USDA estimates already raises and eats half the world’s pork, could surge by more than 70 percent from 2013 to 2030, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said Sept. 5.
China’s demand for corn and soybeans will continue to rise in line with economic growth, according to the USDA report in April. The economy, which has the world’s biggest meat industry, may expand 6.9 percent in 2016, more than twice as fast as the U.S., according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The country imported 63 million metric tons of soybeans last year valued at $38 billion, accounting for more than 60 percent of global exports, customs data show. It also shipped in 3.3 million tons of corn, according to the data. Soybean purchases will climb to 96.9 million tons by about 2020, with corn reaching 16 million tons, according to a long-term projection made by the USDA in February.
U.S. Grains
Most of the soybeans and corn China imports are grown with engineered seeds, including those with built-in resistance to Monsanto Co.’s Roundup herbicide, Zhang Xiaoping, chief representative of the U.S. Soybean Export Council, said by telephone Sept. 30.
China’s biggest supplier is the U.S., where GMO crops account for 93 percent of all corn produced and 94 percent of soybeans, USDA data show. While the U.S. is the largest user, Brazil and Argentina sowed a combined 64.7 million hectares (160 million acres) of GMO corn, soybeans and cotton in 2013, with another 21.8 million hectares planted in India and Canada, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications.
“China doesn’t have a choice when the top suppliers all employ the technology,” Zhang said.
Corn in China trades at almost three times the U.S. price. Futures for December delivery on the Chicago Board of Trade were down 0.4 percent at $3.4175 a bushel at 6:08 a.m. On the Dalian Commodity Exchange, the grain was at 2,342 yuan a ton, or about $9.70 a bushel.
Not Unique
Concern that GMO crops are unsafe isn’t unique to China. Only 27 countries planted genetically modified crops in 2013, ISAAA data show, and at least 60 have labeling requirements, including Japan, Brazil and the entire European Union. Surveys in the EU show opposition by consumers, who worry about risks such as human resistance to antibiotics and the development of so-called superweeds that are impervious to herbicides.
China approved strains of genetically modified rice and corn in 2009, saying at the time that mass-production will be allowed only after trial planting and public acceptance. Cotton is the only bioengineered crop widely grown.
Unlike the U.S., Brazil and Argentina, China doesn’t raise gene-altered food crops on a commercial scale, according to Huang Dafang, a researcher with Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and former member of the agriculture ministry’s biosafety committee. Instead, it only buys them, though the government has rejected some imports with unapproved traits, including an insect-repelling variety developed by Syngenta AG. Imports must be processed, mostly into animal feed and cooking oil, he said.
Consumer Concern
Even as the top leadership has approved the safety of domestically developed genetically modified corn and rice, they haven’t been cultivated outside labs, according to Huang. No one at China’s agriculture ministry replied to a request for comment sent by fax.
“The main reason for China’s slow adoption of biotech grain crops isn’t so much that the government is swayed by public opinions,” Shanghai JC Intelligence’s Li said. “It’s that China doesn’t have leading, marketable biotechnologies and is afraid of having the market controlled by foreign companies once commercialization is granted.”
Genetically modified foods currently available show no effect on human health among the populations where they’ve been approved and likely aren’t a risk, according to the World Health Organization.
That hasn’t prevented consumers from expressing concern about food safety. China Central Television reported illegal sales of unapproved GMO rice in supermarkets in central Hubei province, prompting a pledge by the government that it would crack down on illegal growing and selling.
“We don’t know what GMO is and what it really does to our bodies,” said Zhou, the mother in Weihai who expressed fear of feeding her son corn porridge. “Hopefully, the government can help us understand what the truth really is.”
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: William Bi in Beijing at wbi@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ramsey Al-Rikabi at ralrikabi@bloomberg.net Sungwoo Park
