Local GM papaya fails field trial, drawing a 20-year research effort to a close

Once expected to be the first local GM crop to reach the market, but the field trial did not pass

Papaya ringspot virus is like a terminal illness for papaya. Spread by aphid bites, it was impossible for farmers to control effectively in the past, making cultivation quite troublesome. Ye Xidong pointed out that 20 years ago the Council of Agriculture provided funding and commissioned him to lead a national agricultural biotechnology program, hoping to develop technology against Papaya ringspot virus.

In 2003, "gene-cloned papaya resistant to ringspot virus" passed the Council of Agriculture's designated trial for gene-cloned plants, making it the first case of a GM crop field trial in our country. It could be grown in the open and also prevented aphids from causing Papaya ringspot virus. At the time it was seen as likely to become the first local GM crop to reach the market, but although Ye Xidong submitted an application, he never obtained review approval for food inspection registration from the former Department of Health, and to date it cannot be promoted on the market.

Ye Xidong later developed resistance to Papaya leaf-distortion mosaic virus and cultivated a "dual-resistant" GM papaya line resistant to both ringspot virus and leaf-distortion mosaic virus. It won the 2012 Taipei Biotech Award and patents in the United States and China, and its future looked bright, but when all the field trial data were submitted for review on November 29, 2013, the Agriculture and Food Agency's review in February this year did not pass it.

"At the beginning it was the Council of Agriculture's administrative negligence that delayed for two years before formally allowing me to do the field trial, and now they say my timing was all wrong. The national program was approved, we experimented for three years, and they review it on paper and just reject it. How are you supposed to be competitive with foreign countries?" Ye Xidong said angrily, arguing that the Agriculture and Food Agency did not invite the person concerned to explain during the review either, calling it "simply a black-box operation."

In addition, Ye Xidong mentioned that virus-resistant GM papaya is very safe. "Plants naturally develop immunity when infected by a virus. Our strategy uses the principle of 'vaccination' to trigger immunity in advance to fight the virus and strengthen the plant's immunity," he said, adding that after ten years of assessment there were no concerns about protein toxicity or allergenicity, and he did not understand why the former Food and Drug Administration under the Department of Health (today the Food and Drug Administration under the Ministry of Health and Welfare) kept refusing to approve food registration and inspection.

In response, Weng Zhenxin, director of the Crop Production Section of the Agriculture and Food Agency under the Council of Agriculture, said the agency's review committee did not deliberately make things difficult for Ye Xidong's research project. Rather, after assessment it found that the required biotoxicity tests had not been completed and that Ye had not supplied the missing items within the deadline, so the case was suspended first.

Net houses and traditional breeding can resist pests and diseases, so GM papaya is no longer what the market needs

As for what impact the failure of the GM papaya field trial application in Taiwan, China, has on agriculture in Taiwan, China?

Ye Xidong said that with the field trial not passed, "there is no hope for any biotechnology involving GM or DNA manipulation in Taiwan, China, because this is the first indicator. If it does not pass, nothing else will pass." He also criticized the Agriculture and Food Agency for not understanding the current state of international cutting-edge industry development, saying, "On the research level, many things in Taiwan, China are now behind mainland China."

Ye Xidong also pointed out that Hawaii, the United States, Shanghai in China and other places already allow the planting of GM papaya, and GM soybeans have also been introduced into Taiwan, China. "Following the same procedures, Taiwan, China is still asking whether this can be eaten and still saying field trials cannot be approved. Isn't that ridiculous?"

However, Guo Huaren, a professor in the Department of Agronomy and Graduate Institute at National Taiwan University, said Taiwan, China never had any need to develop GM crops, because many problems have appeared with GM crops cultivated around the world, such as animal tests showing they may cause allergies and various other pathological changes.

Developing virus-resistant GM papaya is not the only solution either. Guo Huaren pointed out that the antiviral effect of the first generation of ringspot-virus-resistant GM papaya was later less than ideal, because the virus keeps mutating. Besides the already known fact that farmers can effectively prevent pests and diseases with net houses, retired National Taiwan University horticulture professor Zhang Longsheng also used traditional breeding to cultivate papaya with ringspot virus tolerance genes, concentrating various disease-resistance genes in the same line so that no matter how the virus mutates there is no fear. "So there is simply no need for GM technology."

Weng Zhenxin also said that even if GM papaya were allowed on the market today, it would not meet consumer expectations or market needs. When it was grown in the open 20 years ago, farmers truly did not know how to prevent aphids, and the government also hoped GM technology could solve the problem. But later it became known that net houses can effectively block pests and diseases. In addition, the area planted with papaya in the country is only 3,000 hectares, so even if all of it switched to GM seedlings the quantity would not be large. Moreover, once large amounts of open-field GM papaya were cultivated, saving the high cost of building net houses, the price of papaya could fall to five to ten yuan per jin, and there could then be a problem of overproduction.

In addition, if Taiwan, China promoted GM papaya, it would not be entirely beneficial for export trade either. Li Wenli, associate researcher and head of the Tropical Fruit Tree Section of the Fengshan Tropical Horticultural Experiment Branch of the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, said that once GM papaya seeds escape, it is very difficult to track their spread and recover them completely, and they may even hybridize with other lines. Moreover, many countries around the world have doubts about GM crops, and once a product is detected as a GM crop it will seriously affect export markets.

Li Wenli mentioned that although the United States and Hawaii allow GM papaya cultivation, testing costs about one US dollar per plant. Taiwan, China has more than 3,000 hectares, with 1,500 plants per hectare; multiply each plant by 30 New Taiwan dollars and it becomes a huge expense. "After labeling it as GM, will consumers buy it? And both exports and retail sales require labeling and testing. Whether that will have a better effect on this industry all needs to be reassessed."

"Doing experiments is one thing, and whether something can be promoted on the market is another. Experiments can be full of innovative ideas of every kind, but it only makes sense if it comes back to whether there is a market," Weng Zhenxin said. Now domestic consumer awareness is rising, with many people advocating eating non-GM food, and mainland China and Japan also require non-GM papaya. "If GM crops have no market, then who are you going to sell them to?"

Although scientific research is not necessarily linked to entering food channels, Weng Zhenxin still encouraged scholars to develop innovative technologies, and Ye Xidong could still apply to the Council of Agriculture's Department of Science and Technology for a project to complete the trials.

GM seeds hard to control: nearly 70 percent of papaya in Hong Kong, China, is GM, and organic farms have fallen too