In September 2009, the Ministry of Agriculture quietly issued bio-safety certificates for two strains of genetically modified (GM) rice and a GM corn strain, signs that China is expected to be the first country to commercialize GM rice planting.

For the first time, a major grain producer is endorsing the use of GM technology in a food staple, arousing great public concern and furious arguments among experts over its safety.

On the one hand, some agricultural experts and research centers have claimed that current studies do not prove that GM foods are harmful to the health and detrimental to national grain safety. On the other hand, some academics have argued that people have the right to know about the long-term risks of the technology.

There is no denying that the advancement of agricultural technology could impact traditional means of production and the varieties of grains. However, since food is the first necessity of people, the government should be scrupulous when it comes to the process of approving GM foods. Their decisions bear greatly on the health of the masses.

Though GM technology achieved great breakthroughs over the past five decades, its safety is still controversial. In fact, the United States, the homeland of GM rice, still has not issued bio-safety certificates guaranteeing GM rice. How then can some Chinese experts be so confident in justifying the safety of GM rice? How can they say there are no risks?

In 2008, France officially imposed a ban on a strain of GM corn produced by the US. The immune system of laboratory mice that ate the GM food was damaged, according to an article published in the Lancet, the world's leading independent medical journal.

It is extremely worrisome that only a team of experts has the lives of 1.3 billion people in their hands. The case is not a pure academic argument, but a controversy between huge business interests and academic conscience.