China's YaSheng increases R&D to meet agricultural demands
Dated: 3 April 2007
China’s YaSheng says that it will invest over five million dollars in research and development in the agricultural biotech segment over the next five years. The move comes as the Chinese government announced its own intentions to more than quadruple its spending on biotechnology by 2010 as part of a strategy to improve national food security.
YaSheng says it is already using draft and insect-resistant plant strains, as well as high-tech drip irrigation systems to save on water.
Currently, China already accounts for 20 percent of the global research and development investment in agricultural biotechnology. In 2003, the Chinese government spent a reported $200 million on agro-biotech—an amount that has since doubled.
China's population currently stands at 1.3 billion, or about 20 percent of the world's total. By 2020 it is expected to have climbed to 1.5 billion. Yet the country only has seven percent of the world's total arable land.
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