Hunan Wal-Mart Transgenic Rice Tracing: Two Different Results

Although the time has passed for half a month, the storms of Hunan's GM rice have not completely subsided.

“I received a phone call from Wal-Mart yesterday and said that they were going to sue Greenpeace China headquarters (herein referred to as Greenpeace).” On March 29th, the owner of the Dragon Boat Rice Factory in Chaoyang, Hunan Province, involving genetically modified rice storms disclosed the latest incident to the reporter. progress.

On March 15th, Greenpeace issued a survey report that it detected a “cat tooth rice” containing the genetically modified genetically modified components in Changsha Wal-Mart Stores. These rice were partly from the Dragon Boat Rice Factory.

The “problem” rice was soon taken off the shelf and Hunan's agricultural department immediately conducted a sample survey. However, the sample inspection released by the Hunan Agriculture Department later showed that none of the rice and rice samples submitted for inspection had detected genetically modified components.

"There is really no genetically modified component in the samples submitted for inspection. As for whether GM rice can be eaten in the end, it is still unclear," said a staff member of the GM Office of the Hunan Provincial Department of Agriculture.

“We don’t currently have plans to prosecute Greenpeace.” On March 30, Li Ling, director of public relations at Wal-Mart China headquarters, said in a telephone interview that Wal-Mart has been communicating with retail trade associations and the government and hopes to find out the incident as soon as possible. And handle it properly.

Why are the two test results so different? Where does GM rice from Greenpeace come from, given that commercial production and circulation have not been approved? This reporter launched an investigation into this.

Two tests, different results

On March 15, 2010, Greenpeace’s “Supermarket Fresh Bulk Food Investigation Report” put the global retail giant Wal-Mart in trouble. The report stated that Wal-Mart's Changsha Huangxing South Road shop sells illegal genetically modified rice, and the product involved is the “cat tooth rice” from the dragon boat factory in Miluo, Hunan.

On March 20th, the Hunan Provincial Department of Agriculture issued a notice and announced the results of a sampling test on cat teeth, saying that “32 rice and rice samples including 'cat's teeth' were taken from this test. The product composition testing institute detected that 32 samples had not detected the insect-resistant transgenic components."

However, the reporter found from a test report obtained by a third-party testing agency that the Bt endotoxin-specific gene sequence was found in the sample DNA of cat teeth, which means that the tested rice did contain genetically modified components.