GMO News

This is an early report of a paper coming out in Science claiming that Chinese farmers who use GM rice use less pesticide, have lower rates of pesticide related disease and enjoy increased yields (via botanicalgirl.) If true, this would support a lot of the claims of Monsanto et al.

China is also an important battleground for the GMO fight. Until recently, almost all GMOs have been grown in the US and Canada, with a smidge in Argentina. China was the next developing country to start to use GM seed. In 2002, China, the US, Argentina and Canada grew 99% of GM crops. (James 2002 [.pdf]). Now there are 14 countries listed by GMO advocates as heavily invested in genetic agricultural technology (James 2004, [.pdf]). Success in China will reinforce this trend.

Is there some kind of funder bias with the current study of GMOs in China? Perhaps. The work was funded by Chinese government agencies, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Chinese Academy of Science. This isn't like being funded directly by Monstanto, but it still could lead to charges of bias, as the Party seems committed to GM farming. I'll have to look at the full study to get a better sense.