When did China ban genetically modified soybeans from producing bean products?

Chinese mainland does not explicitly prohibit the use of genetically modified soybeans to produce bean products. Instead, it adopts the system that "enterprises that use genetically modified soybeans as raw materials need to apply to the regulatory authorities for approval of genetically modified organisms", and then mainly approve the applications of oil processing enterprises.

In 2002, the Ministry of Agriculture promulgated the Measures for the Administration of Labeling of Genetically Modified Organisms, in which "soybean seeds, soybeans, soybean powder, soybean oil and soybean meal" are related to genetically modified soybeans, while bean products such as tofu, soybean milk and soy sauce are not within the scope of labeling requirements, and the relevant regulations are vague. You can understand them from three aspects:

Genetically modified soybeans can be used to make soy products outside the prescribed scope. Since there is no requirement for labeling, there is no need to label.

Genetically modified soybeans can be used to make soy products outside the prescribed scope, but they should be marked as "genetically modified".

Genetically modified soybeans cannot be used to make soy products outside the prescribed scope.

In any case, it often happens that genetically modified soybeans are directly used in bean products without application and labeling:

20 1 1 It was found that half of the nominal "non-transgenic" soybean milk in Hong Kong market contained transgenic soybean ingredients, and four of them exceeded 0.2%.

In 20 13 years, two kinds of tofu in CR Vanguard were found to contain genetically modified soybean ingredients (the detection limit was 0. 1%) without labels.

20 14 found that the soybean milk provided by KFC contained genetically modified soybean ingredients, and it was not marked.

20 18 found that the pure soybean powder produced by southern food contains genetically modified soybean ingredients and has no label.

In the past ten years, China has not managed the negative labeling of "non-GMO" on packaging. In the 2020 draft of the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Food Labeling [1], the negative labeling of "non-genetically modified" is prohibited.