Director of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences: GM is scientifically clear logo is discrimination

At the end of last month, the Ministry of Agriculture officially released a reply letter to the proposal of “enhancing the safety management of genetically modified foods”, pointing out that China is the only country that adopts a qualitative directory-based mandatory labeling method. Products that are approved for listing are all safe.

However, for the identification of this matter, because the current world is parallel to the four methods, this has also caused extensive discussion among experts. According to a report from the Science and Technology Daily, Lin Min, director of the Institute of Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said: “The qualitative identification is stricter than the quantitative identification, and it has high technical requirements for detection. However, its scientific nature is subject to discussion and will bring more problems to the regulatory and R&D. ."

“But in the United States, the word “non-transgenic” is not allowed, and it is considered to be a discrimination against genetically modified foods.” Lin Min said.

Chen Junshi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, also agreed: “I personally think that qualitative identification is not a very scientific practice. For example, the oil produced by genetically modified soybeans does not theoretically contain genes that are transferred in. Because oil is fat, but according to the existing detection methods, A tiny bit (microgram level) can be detected, so the labeling is required, but if you use genetically modified corn as a snack, according to the list system adopted by the Ministry of Agriculture, it is not necessary to identify maize as a cornflakes. Most countries use quantitative labels and believe that more than a certain amount of labels are needed, and China should work hard in this direction."

Chen Junshi said that the propaganda and labeling of non-GM foods are strictly unfair business competitions. Although China has no legal provisions, the US Food and Drug Administration can not do so in the express stipulations, arguing that this practice implies that genetic modification is bad. The harmful behavior is unacceptable and unscientific.

In addition, we have previously reported that the issue of high labeling costs has also been repeatedly mentioned in the salons of agricultural genetic subjects held recently. Canadian research shows that genetically modified ingredients will increase the retail price of processed foods by at least 9% to 10%, as well as 35% to 41% of the manufacturer's cost, and this will eventually be passed on to all consumers in accordance with the principles of today's qualitative labeling.

Therefore, some experts even suggested that those who do not believe that genetic modification is scientifically harmless should bear this cost.