EXCLUSIVE - Top rice producer China approves GMO strain

By Niu Shuping and Tom Miles

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has approved its first strain of genetically modified rice for commercial production, two scientists involved in the approval process told Reuters on Friday, potentially easing the way for other major producers to adopt the controversial technology.

The approval of the locally-developed rice, as well as China's first GMO corn, shifts the global balance of power in food trade and could prompt other countries to follow suit, experts said.

It will also enable China, the world's top producer and consumer of rice, to grow more of its staple food amid shrinking land and water resources.

The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture's Biosafety Committee issued biosafety certificates to pest-resistant Bt rice, two committee members told Reuters on Friday, with large-scale production to start in 2-3 years.

"We expect that with the Chinese approval of Bt rice it will be much easier for other countries to do this," said Robert Zeigler, director general at the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute, which is developing a number of GMO strains of rice.

But Greenpeace called the move a "dangerous genetic experiment" and said it had previously exposed illegal cases of genetically engineered (GE) rice in China.

"If the Ministry of Agriculture cannot even control the illegal cultivation of GE rice, how can they manage the risks of large scale cultivation?" Lorena Luo, Greenpeace's food and agriculture campaigner in China, asked in an emailed statement.

China, which wants to raise grain production 8 percent to 540 million tonnes a year by 2020, has splashed out on GMO research, with $3.5 billion going on rice, corn and wheat.