Abstract:

Glyphosate, as a broad-spectrum herbicide, is widely used in various environmental weed control. Because of its excellent weeding effect, safety and the advantages of being used in glyphosate tolerant transgenic crops, it has become the largest herbicide in the world. China is the largest producer of glyphosate, mainly for export. Glyphosate in China is mainly used before planting and after harvest of non GM crops. However, with the central decision-making and deployment of the country to orderly promote the application of biotechnology breeding, glyphosate will step to an outbreak period in China's market. Meanwhile, the ‘glyphosate safety dispute’ still has a negative impact on the wide application of glyphosate, hence glyphosate has great opportunities and challenges in the application of biotechnology breeding in China. This paper will comprehensively sort out the past and present lives of glyphosate from the aspects of its emergence, application status, action mechanism, relationship with glyphosate tolerant crops and the current situation of biotechnology breeding, so as to establish an objective public understanding of glyphosate and orderly promote application of biotechnology biological breeding in China.

Key words: glyphosate, biotechnology breeding, transgene, pesticide residues, food safety