GMW: China resists 'Frankenbean' and sees windfall

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GMW: China resists 'Frankenbean' and sees windfall

" GM WATCH " <info

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:51:24 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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despite the inaccurate industry hype about GM and farmers some useful

info

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China resists 'Frankenbean' and sees windfall

Tue Jun 21, 2005

By Nao Nakanishi

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=reutersEdge & storyID=2005-0\

6-21T073035Z_01_NOA126970_RTRUKOC_0_CHINA-BEANS.xml

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - While farmers around the world are switching in

droves to hardy, genetically modified soybeans, China's producers are

finding an unexpected windfall growing the conventional crop.

 

Consumers in Europe and other countries are still worried about the

safety of the so-called GMO products, which some have dubbed

" Frankenstein

food " .

 

" We can't meet all the orders, " said Li Yanmei, vice president of

Beijing Gingko-Group Biological Technology Co, which produces vitamin

E from

Chinese non-GMO soybeans.

 

" Even some U.S. customers pick non-GMO health products....that's how we

have decided to make only non-GMO products. "

 

The company is now building a second production line in Beijing to

quadruple its capacity. Gingko is one of a handful of Chinese vitamin E

producers that have acquired a GMO-free certificate known as Identity

Preservation Certification, or IP, which requires strict quality controls

for the entire supply chain starting at the farms.

 

Ironically, China is the world's top soy importer and buys more than 20

million tonnes of GMO soybeans each year from the United States and

South America for the production of soyoil and soymeal, used mainly for

animal feed.

 

But it has not allowed its own farmers to plant the biotech oilseed at

home. Its non-GMO soybeans, mostly grown in the northeastern provinces,

is becoming all the more rare now that Brazil has joined other world

top soy producers -- the United States and Argentina -- to grow GMO soy.

 

Farmers around the world are switching to the more profitable

genetically altered soybeans because they can cut herbicide and other

operational costs.

 

More than 80 percent of the soybeans grown in the United States are

herbicide-tolerant GMO Roundup Ready variety, developed by biotechnology

giant Monsanto.

 

SUPPLY CHAIN GROWS

 

Japan or South Korea have long bought Chinese non-GMO soybeans for

human consumption, but now the demand is growing for non-GMO soy products

from Europe, which introduced strict GMO labelling laws last year.

 

" Many European buyers are coming to China for IP vitamin E, and also

other health and food products, " said Chuk Ng of GeneScan, a global

leader in biological testing for GMOs, headquartered in Germany.

 

" There's also growing interest for soy protein. It's a binder for

sausages and ham. China produces non-GMO soy protein, " said the general

manager of GeneScan Hong Kong.

 

Carrefour, the world's second largest retailer, is planning to develop

a non-GMO supply chain for soybeans and possibly rice for its stores in

China.

 

" For Carrefour, it's a global policy in every country where we are to

give the choice to customers in offering transparent non-GMO products, "

Antoine Bloch, national quality line manager for Carrefour in China,

told Reuters from Shanghai.

 

Industry officials say segregating non-GMO crops from GMO products is

possible but costly, especially for bulk commodities like soybeans.

 

CHEATERS TEMPTED

 

In Beijing, the backyard of Gingko's plant is filled with containers of

non-altered soy fatty acid, delivered by domestic crushers of the

soyoil. The company produces 100 tonnes of vitamin E from about 2,000

tonnes

of the fatty acid each year.

 

" IP control costs a lot of money, " said Li. But she said the IP

certified vitamin fetches $45-50 a kg, or double the price of the GMO

equivalent.

 

GeneScan's Ng calculated IP certified soy earned premiums of about 5

percent, soymeal 10-12 percent, while more sophisticated products such as

vitamin E or lecithin could garner as much as 200 percent in premiums.

 

But GeneScan's Ng and Zhang Hiaochuan, another vice president of

Gingko, said the premiums have encouraged some to cheat as it was

difficult

to detect genetically modified organisms in highly processed products.

 

" Vitamin E is a problem because sometimes it's difficult to test it, "

said Ng. " Many companies sell their products as non-GMO. But it is not

possible to produce it in such a big volume. "

 

 

 

 

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