Full rice investigation

IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF WHETHER GENETICALLY modified food is safe or not. Instead it is a question of whether the country's top agricultural authorities will be able to maintain their policies, and a question of whether the provincial agricultural bureau of Central China's Hubei province has turned a blind eye to the illegal commercial farming of genetically modified rice.

The Ministry of Agriculture has never granted a permit for the commercial planting of GM rice, although it issued a safety certificate for a type of GM rice in 2009. However, commercial farming of GM rice in Hubei was reported several years ago. It was reported that a professor, who is in charge of a project of research into GM rice, once said that GM rice seeds had been sold to local farmers.

Nevertheless, the local provincial agricultural authorities have denied there has ever been commercial planting of GM rice in the province. Even ranking officials from the Ministry of Agriculture have said in public that there has been no commercial planting of GM rice.