China steps up biotech research

China is set to quintuple its investment on research in agricultural biotechnology to $500 million by the year 2005, according to leading agri-research firm Monsanto of USA.

Noel Borlongan, Monsanto government and public affairs director in the Philippines said, once China reaches the $500-million mark, it could top US spending on this area, signaling its leadership bid in the agricultural engineering field.

China’s increasing investment in agri-biotech research belies claims by some anti-biotech groups that the world’s largest agricultural country is slowing down in this field, Borlongan said.

"On the contrary, China has joined the race to find sustainable solutions to food-related problems using modern biotechnology; in fact, it was the first country to commercialize a biotech crop – a plant virus-resistant tobacco," Borlongan said. China is now conducting biotech research on more than 50 plant species, including peanuts and papayas.

Recently, China stepped up its use of a biotech cotton variety.

Quoting a recent Fortune Magazine report, Borlongan said the use of biotech cotton by Chinese farmers in 1999 alone has already resulted in the drastic reduction of chemical pesticides by 80 percent, reducing production costs by 28 percent equivalent to some $330 million.

The incidence of pesticide-related poisoning also plummeted by 79 percent, the report said.

Biotechnology allows experts to develop plant varieties with natural resistance to specific pests and diseases. The natural resistance results in the radical reduction or total elimination of the need to apply chemical insecticides to crops.

Borlongan noted, however, that China’s share in the global biotech acreage is only a little over one percent compared to over 68 percent for the United States. The US has now more acres planted to biotech soybeans, cotton and corn than the conventional chemical pesticide-dependent varieties.

In Asia, India recently joined China in the race to propagate biotech cotton in the region. Indonesia has also set aside some 10,000 hectares for the crop, while the Philippines has completed the field testing of a high-yielding pest resistant biotech corn variety called YieldGard. The latter is expected to be commercially available soon.

Japan has also approved the importation of three varieties of biotechnology-processed corn and soybean, which brings to a total of 43 varieties of genetically-modified plants the country has approved for consumption.

Other countries with fast-growing areas planted to biotech crops are Canada, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina.