China committee not recommending GMO rice

By Nao Nakanishi

     HONG KONG, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A Chinese government committee has

failed to reach a consensus on the safety of genetically modified rice,

putting off the world's first large-scale production of the transgenic

grain for human consumption.

     Committee members told Reuters on Monday the biosafety committee  

was

asking for more data to prove the safety of genetically modified (GMO)

rice before recommending that Beijing approve its use.

     "There has been no safety agreement for commercial release,"  

said Lu

Baorong of Shanghai Fudan University, who is one of 74 members of the

committee, which comes under the ministry of agriculture.

     "Next year, if they provide sufficient safety information, we will

assess again," said Lu, also a deputy director at the Institute of

Biodiversity Science.

     An official from the agriculture ministry's GMO office declined to

give details of the three-day meeting that ended on Friday, saying that

it was collecting expert views on GMO rice.

     Activists and scientists have said China, the world's top rice

consumer and producer, is reining in plans to introduce GMO rice as

concerns mount over safety.

     NEW COMMITTEE, TRADE CONCERNS

     The government has added more food and environment safety  

experts to

the new committee, which they said had made it more difficult to reach a

consensus on GMO rice.

     Beijing was caught off guard in April when environment group

Greenpeace said unapproved GMO rice was on sale in markets in the

central province of Hubei, one of China's major rice producers.

     Greenpeace also reported sales in the southern province of  

Guangdong

in June.

     Early this year China, already the world's largest grower of insect

resistant GMO cotton, looked set to approve commercialisation of a GMO

rice known as Xa21 that includes a gene from an African wild rice.

     Yet Beijing has not given the green light to the disease resistant

Xa21 rice.

     China has been conducting field trials on four varieties of GMO

rice, including Bt rice, which has a gene that makes it toxic to pests,

the insect resistant CpTI and Bt/CpTI rice.

     "We are just waiting," said Jia Shirong, a professor from the

Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, whose team had

applied for the commercial release of Xa21 rice after more than eight

years of study and field trials.

     "We have submitted additional data...Whether it will be approved  

for

commercialisation depends on the government. I don't know when it will

happen," the professor told Reuters.

  (Additional reporting by Niu Shuping in Beijing)

  ((Reporting by Nao Nakanishi, editing by Bernard Halloran;

nao.nakanishi@reuters.com; Reuters Messaging:

nao.nakanishi.reuters.com@reuters.net; +852 2843 1652))

   Monday, 28 November 2005 18:30:36RTRS [nHKG300373] {C}ENDS

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