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| Potential Commercialization of Genetically Modified Rice in China: Key Questions for Environmental Biosafety Assessments |
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Abstract The commercialization of genetically modified (GM) rice may arouse environmental biosafety concerns, including the impacts of transgenes on non-target organisms and biodiversity, transgene escape and its related ecological consequences, and transgenic influences on soil micro-fauna form extensive cultivation of GM rice. Science-based environmental biosafety assessments of GM rice will facilitate its safe and sustainable application in agriculture eco-systems. Based on the actual eco-systems and cultivation styles of rice, as well as the types of GM rice varieties that would be possibly commercially released in China, this paper presents a rational analysis of potential environmental biosafety consequences caused by the extensive commercial cultivation of the GM rice. Based on the principal of any risk assessment (risk% = hazards × exposure), the author particularly analyzed the direct and indirect influences of GM rice resistant to insects, diseases, and herbicides. Hopefully, the analysis based on the rational thinking will provide useful information for decision-making on GM rice commercialization and the relevant environmental biosafety assessments.
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Received: 02 July 2008
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