Against the grain

摘要

Last June, the China Daily―the English-language mouthpiece of the country's ruling Communist Party―published an article by Greenpeace, describing the alleged ecological risks posed by transgenic crops. It wasn't quite as though Amnesty International had been asked to write a piece on China's treatment of its political dissidents, but for those who are familiar with Beijing's official line on transgenic agriculture, it still marked a dramatic turnaround. Since the mid-1980s, the Chinese government has ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the technology, and in the late 1990s it swiftly authorized the commercialization of a handful of transgenic crops. At that time, Chinese agriculture seemed to be on the highway to a genetically modified future. Indeed, at the lab bench, that is still the case: universities and government labs are bursting with ideas, talent and investment. "Plant science is a major activity, because it is so important to China," says Jiayang Li, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology in Beijing.