China is stepping up its development of genetically-modified plant varieties and has been filing about 75 per cent of the world’s patents for gene editing, according to Erik Fyrwald, chief executive officer of Syngenta.
Zhang Taolin, vice-minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, recently told the Global Conference on Green Development of Seed Industries, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, that China wants to participate in global co-operation on plant breeding.
Zhang put forth three proposals: step up efforts in building international cooperation mechanisms for seed industries; strengthen collaborative breeding at the field level, and stimulate collaboration among market entities, thereby encouraging companies to invest in modern breeding systems.
China is also planning a regulatory overhaul of its seed rules, in order to help pave the way for the approval of new GMO crops, the Chinese government said in a document recently posted to its website for public input.
China recently granted safety certificates for production and application to four genetically-modified corn and three soybean varieties that were pilot tested in 2021.
The pilot program’s results show that the soybean varieties can achieve better than 95 per cent weed control with just one herbicide spraying.
Corn varieties reached 95 per cent resistance to fall armyworm, without the use of pesticides.
One big advantage in China is that the government supports this research and development. We used to do that in Canada, but budget cuts decimated our federal and university plant breeding programs.
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