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Page added on August 2, 2014
China Halts U.S. Grain Imports Due to GMO Concerns
Of 613,678 tons that were reported at Chinese customs in April, 600,000 tons tested positive as GMO
China has somewhat of a history when it comes to refusing GMOs from the United States. Now, due to fears that genetically modified grains will find their way in, China recently put the brakes on some U.S. grain imports, imports that amount to hundreds of thousands of tons per month.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the move by Chinese regulators is just the latest in an effort from the country to keep GM corn outside of its borders.
The grain in question is a corn product known as DDGS, or dried distillers’ grains. Used in animal feed production, it is essentially a leftover from when corn is processed into ethanol.
The concern is that MIR 162, a genetically modified strain of corn, will find its way in among the DDGS despite not being approved by the Chinese government. Their concern isn’t without cause. Of 613,678 tons that were reported at Chinese customs in April, 600,000 tons tested positive for MIR 162.
“It looks like the government is determined to stop any form of corn imports from the U.S.,” said Sylvia Shi, from the Shanghai-based agricultural research company Shanghai JC Intelligence Co.
Almost half of all U.S. corn in made into ethanol, leaving plenty of DDGS to go around. China is the United States’ top importer of DDGS. Last year they bought 34 percent of DDGS exports, more than twice as much as Mexico, who imported the second-largest amount.
GMO Watch reports:
“This development did not come as a total surprise, following as it did China’s recent rejection of 1.1 million metric tons of Syngenta corn containing the unapproved GMO strain MIR162. Official news said that though Syngenta has repeatedly submitted the Lepidoptera-resistant GM corn for review and import into China, the documenting information and experimental data were incomplete and problematic. Thus the corn is still under assessment and has not been approved for import.”
And all of this isn’t terribly surprising. China previously destroyed a total of at least three genetically modified corn shipments with origins from the United States in a move that echoes the way in which the nation of Hungary actually went and destroyed acres upon acres of Monsanto’s GMO corn fields. The soveriergn state also refused over 887,000 tonnes of GMO corn shipped from the U.S. since just last November.
The import stoppage is seen as a “win-win” for China, who believes short-term losses of DDGS supply will eventually lead to gains when U.S. farmers see the value in turning away from GM corn. One can only hope it will be this simple.
21 Comments on "China Halts U.S. Grain Imports Due to GMO Concerns"
paulo1 on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 8:43 am
So, the Chinese don’t import GMO corn, but have no problem exporting melamine laced products to others. God knows what their own folks eat.
I saw a production once that showed Chinese folks scrambling around to process the morning’s dead chickens before they rotted. Those were processed into some kind of nuggets.
Feed these exports to domestic pigs and let’s see the price of bacon go down in NA.
These guys kill me. Their country is basically and open cesspool, they can’t grow enough food, they are running out of water, and they reject GMO crops? Righttttt.
Paulo
Perk Earl on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 9:23 am
Regardless of other ways to criticize China, I tip my hat to their rejection of US grain imports due to concerns over GMO.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 9:39 am
I echo Paulo here the Chinese could give a shit about their people when it comes to food safety and pollution safety growth dominates all Chinese decisions. There are other issues behind these GMO actions. China is in no position to halt imports of US grain. Google the China import numbers and the US export numbers and you will see. The Chinese are desperate for grains from North and South America. The situation is really becoming quite desperate for the Chinese by the day as their cancerous development and expanding population and expanding wealth garner an ever increasing amount of the world’s exportable food. The same issues with oil are occurring with China and food. Soon China will be unloved by the third world when these countries fail to import enough food because the Chinese have the food export market cornered.
ghung on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 9:45 am
Paulo – Sorry, but since the Chinese bought Smithfield Foods last year, they own a huge chunk of North American pork production. I suppose they have little problem feeding pigs GM corn in the US and reaping the profits. Of course, if the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus can’t be controlled, there’ll be fewer pigs to eat all of that corn the Chinese don’t want. Got cows?
Meanwhile, The #2 corn exporter, Brazil, is in an ongoing drought, and #3, Ukraine,, well….
Corn in the US fell below its 52 week low yesterday. I’m sure the ethanol producers don’t have a problem with that.
ronpatterson on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 10:16 am
China imports 3 million metric tons of corn per year. I don’t know what percentage of that they get from the US. But Japan imports 16 million metric tons per year, over 5 times as much.
http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=corn&graph=imports
So it’s not really that big a deal. However almost all corn these days is GMO corn. The same goes for whea. If thy get too picky they are going to get hungry.
farmlad on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 10:48 am
China is also ranked #2 in corn production and mostly raised by millions of small farmers on small acreages in contrast to the USA where its grown on larger farms, involving less peoples livelihoods. http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=corn Maybe the chinese are rejecting USA corn to prop up prices and avoid a revolution. Chicago price on corn today is at $3.52 vs more like $7 – $8 in 2012
baptised on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 11:12 am
Hurry, cheaper high fructose corn syrup for USA!
PrestonSturges on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 11:14 am
>So it’s not really that big a deal. However almost all corn these days is GMO corn. The same goes for whea. If thy get too picky they are going to get hungry.
There’s no GMO wheat, you are probably thinking of soybeans.
But yes, China is famous for its deadly baby formula and dog killing chew toys.
It’s like Japan making a big deal about GMO corn while radioactive fallout rains down on Tokyo.
Magenta on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 12:45 pm
Yes, let them starve.
My husband shoots up a GMO every day — it’s called Humulin (synthetic human insulin).
penury on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 2:54 pm
Preston, could you please furnish a source for the statement that there is no GMO wheat.
PrestonSturges on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 4:30 pm
Just google “there is no GMO wheat.”
But I have seen people claim that they are gluten intolerant because of “GMO wheat,” so apparently that has become part of the anti-GMO urban legend dogma.
PrestonSturges on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 4:31 pm
I think China wants to keep as many people as possible out on the farm rather than having them wander into the cities being unemployed and restless.
Davy on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 5:15 pm
Ron, 1/2 of US corn is GM and very little is used directly for Human consumption. The GM corn is mainly for ethanol this is the reason the Chinese are upset with the ethanol bi products DDGS.
penury on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 8:34 pm
Preston-you might want to Google up Mosanto Gmo wheat. Try to find the part about the wheat in Oregon as far back as the 1980s
DMyers on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 10:05 pm
Let me suggest some possibilities in this situation.
1. China knows a lot more about GMO corn than we do, or are allowed to, and it isn’t good.
2. China looks at it strategically and figures they’re going to let us poison ourselves with GMO, and they’ll win the war without firing a shot.
3. GMOs are known to lower fertility, and China is facing the reality of its own Ponzi Schemes, which require growing population, even to the point of lightening up on the “one child” rule. The Chinese are going to control fertility themselves, and they don’t need the West coming in to steal fertility from their arsenal of strength.
The Chinese are not a stupid people. If they are expressing reservation, distrust and outright rejection of GMO veggies, then I would have to believe, quite strongly, that there’s a damn good reason for assuming that position.
farmlad on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 10:09 pm
I don’t know of any gmo wheat thats been approved to be released to the public in any country. and yes a while ago a genetically modified wheat has escaped and contaminated some fields out west.
D I think its more like 90% of corn is GM.
People could be gluten intolerant from GMO’S or from roundup or who knows what but almost all wheat is non GMO.
Makati1 on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 10:38 pm
A lot of the world is rejecting US poisons disguised as GMO foods. India, Brazil, Russia, China, France, etc. More and more are resisting the attempted corporate takeover of their country. Germany just vetoed a trade agreement with the US. There are too many to mention here.
American’s are kept in the dark and distracted with unimportant ‘news’ while their country goes down the toilet.
Makati1 on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 10:50 pm
BTW: Did you consider that the GMO thingy might just be another front on the East/West war being waged under many guises? No country wants another to be in control of their basic needs, especially food. THAT is what the GMO corporations/elites are trying to do. Control the world’s food supply.
Then one year, by elite decision, ZERO seed is available. Billions die without a shot being fired. And what makes Americans believe that they will have food that year? 90+% of Americans are expendable according to the 1%. Ditto for much of the world.
DMyers on Sat, 2nd Aug 2014 11:36 pm
Makati1
I’m trying to regain my balance after that second entry. I believe it may be as you say. I only hope they beneficently offer lethal injection for those who would prefer not to starve.
It’s not like you to be so compromising on such a dire issue. You commit yourself to 90+%. What is the real fockin number? I’m going with 99. So, the one percent think the entire 99% of the rest of us are expendable. I can’t prove that they’re wrong, but they’re going to miss us when we’re gone.
Makati1 on Sun, 3rd Aug 2014 4:25 am
DMyers, I assume that the 1% will want some serfs to do the dirty work, run the factories, mine the resources, etc, but maybe you are more correct.
And since when have the elite ever been concerned about the suffering of the serfs? Not in any history I ever read. War is the past favorite method of thinning the herd, but it is not enough these days with dwindling resources. They know they have to get control now or lose everything.
They may even be delusional enough to believe they can survive a nuke war. Apparently those running the Us think so or they wouldn’t be poking the Russian Nuclear Bear with such thoughtless abandon, or trying to ‘contain’ nuclear China with promises of ‘support’ to it’s neighbors. Support it is more and more less able to provide.
But the Us Mafia likes to have wars on other country’s lands and for other country’s citizens to die. In WW2, the US sat on it’s hands until Europe was about destroyed and only when they could come in as ‘heroes’ and indenture Europe with huge loans, did they commit US blood to the effort.
PrestonSturges on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:17 am
Anti-GMO sentiment is now part of the Illuminauti/NWO/Chemtrails/HAARP conspiracy subculture.