China has deemed a gene-edited soybean safe to consume marking the first time the country has approved the new technology in a crop, Reuters reported. The high oleic soybean — developed by private company Shandong Shunfeng Biotechnology — has been given a five-year safety certificate from the country’s Agriculture and Rural Affairs Ministry in late April. Despite the approval of the new soybean, farmers in the country will still need approval to use the seed varieties with the altered genes.

Gene-editing what? Gene editing is a new technique that allows for altering existing genomes without introducing foreign genes into a plant — unlike genetic modification, according to a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report (pdf). The technology has the potential to improve food security, nutrition, and environmental sustainability, yet issues of safety must be assessed, FAO said. “The environment, biodiversity and human health could be negatively influenced by release of gene-edited products and therefore regulation must be enacted,” it added.

Expect more from the Chinese: Shandong Shunfeng is currently researching some 20 other gene-edited crops, including a higher yield rice, wheat and corn, herbicide-resistant rice, and soybeans, the newswire said, citing a company representative.

Not the first: The US approved its first gene-edited food in 2019 after it gave the green light to a high oleic soybean developed by US-based company Calyxt, according to Reuters. Japan has also approved several of the altered foods, including healthier tomatoes and fish whose genomes have been edited to increase the speed of growth. Revised legislation in England has paved the way for the commercial development of gene-edited foods, the BBC reported in March. More recently, Canada’s Agriculture and Agri-food Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would allow modified plants under new seed guidelines, CBC reported earlier this month.

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