Tears streaked the cheeks of 74-year-old Zhang Chunmei (a pseudonym), a local farmer in rural Jingbian Town in Shaanxi Province, when the ruins of her cornfield came into her sight.

Zhang's cornfield should have been harvest around now, had the local government not asked the farmers to destroy the genetically modified (GM) crops at the end of last month.

"Officials of the local government and the agricultural authorities came to the town, telling us the corns we grew were genetically modified, and therefore toxic, so had to be eradicated," Zhang recalled.

"How could they destroy the plants which were still premature?" Zhang couldn't help crying.

She is among multitudes of farmers whose sweats and toil proved in vain when the 2.67 square-kilometer of cornfields in rural Shaanxi were razed.

Although the government promised to reimburse the farmers by distributing 2.1 yuan per square meter of land before the end of October, the farmers still grumbled at the meager subsidies lower than the income they could have earned on the market with the harvested corns.

Local people who depend on farming and herding are experienced in growing corns, the area's staple crop. However, after the field clearance, the local government asked the farmers not to even take the remnants for use as fodder.

However, the local farmers complained that the government did not inform them of the allegedly poisonous nature of the GM corns in time, otherwise, they might have been able to replace them with other grains, such as, buckwheat or millets.

"Now it is too late, when the corns are expected mature in weeks," a farmer complained while insisting on remaining anonymous.

Sparsely-populated Jingbian Town has always had good agrarian land to grow corns. Therefore, every year, suppliers of corn seeds would pay frequent visits to the town to tout for sales. Since the farmers are less educated, they simply buy seeds on the recommendation of familiar agents.

However, this year, Li Hongwei, the intermediary of the corn seeds business, introduced Liu Zhenguo, the seeds provider, to the local farmers who were unaware that the seeds were genetically modified. Currently, China only allows the growing of genetically-modified cotton and papaw for commercial use.

Liu was detained by the local police bureau for selling illegal GM corn seeds with a transaction cost preliminarily estimated at 1.8 million yuan (US$ 270,000) and resulting in a direct economic loss of 1.4 million yuan that has severely affected farmers' livelihood.

Liu, a seeds supplier, registered under Hebei Xuntian Company for two years, was supposed to carry on his business in Inner Mongolia. Moreover, the seeds Liu sold to Shaanxi should have been those produced in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region where the farmlands yields no GM seeds.

"It is highly suspicious that whether or not the species of the hybrid corn seeds that Liu sold had obtained approval from national authorities," said a staff member from the company named Wen.

Jiang Tao, senior engineer of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, recently, there are only two species of GM corns allowed to be grown for scientific research. They are planted under stringent regulations, such as, being separated from other agricultural products.

China amended the Seed Law for the second time in 2015, according to which, organizations or individuals are not allowed to sell seeds for market-oriented plantation without official approval.

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