Posted on 14-2-2003

Keep GE Moratorium In Place
By Sir Peter Elworthy

As a farmer who has worked for agricultural and related organisations all
my life, I have a deepening concern about the unanswered questions
surrounding release of GMOs onto our lands and into our food. I am also
very concerned about their potential effect on our export industries.

It is these concerns that have led the Sustainability Council to question
the rush to open the gates for use of genetic modification in agriculture.
I appreciate the opportunity to now share a few unanswered questions with
Straight Furrow readers.

My motive is to ensure that, if the moratorium on GM release is lifted as
proposed in a short ten months, we farmers are not led by Government to
take an irrevocable step which we may regret - forever.

Here are some questions which have yet to be answered satisfactorily.

1. Would adopting GMOs in agriculture damage our Clean Green image to the
point that we lose access to premium markets and harm the economy?

Consumer resistance to GM foods is increasing, not lessening. In Europe
and Japan in particular, concern over even trace contamination is leading
the major importers to advise that they would avoid ALL wheat from the US
if it were to grow GM wheat. Northern consumers are highly sensitised to
GM, in food and animal feed, and see it as anything but clean and green.
Our Clean Green image is unique in the world, bringing us enormous
advantages. Our biggest foreign exchange earners, food and tourism, can
only suffer from a decision to produce GM food in New Zealand at this time.

2. Have individual farm budgets been prepared showing the financial
advantages to individual farmers of GMO technology? We have yet to see such
a budget.

3. Has the New Zealand farming industry as a whole been presented with
figures showing increased profitability from GMOs? The farming
organisations which I support by subscription or levy-Federated Farmers,
Meat NZ, and Deer NZ - all support financially, and presumably in policy
terms, the Life Sciences Network, which is also funded and supported by
commercial firms promoting GMOs in agriculture. We have had no satisfactory
answers from these organisations, nor the Network, as to whether there is
any overall commercial upside from adopting GMOs.

4. Can the Government show that the overall advantages to our economy of
GMOs in agriculture outweigh the disadvantages? Claims of greater wealth
are currently based on speculation that New Zealand will be the inventor of
world-beating GMOs that have yet to be fully developed, let alone
commercialised. A report on the economic risks and opportunities is
however being prepared.

5. Will conventional farmers be protected from contamination by strict
liability being sheeted home to the company selling GMO seed which spreads
and ruins a farm family's livelihood? Current law will too often leave
innocent farmers picking up the financial costs of GM contamination. There
is no strict liability for damage from contamination so farmers will be
left to chance their savings by suing through the Courts. This is
unsatisfactory and has been disastrous for some overseas fellow farmers.

6. Have New Zealand land users been given sufficient assurance that GMOs
will not restrict our current freedom to practice conventional farming?
Federated Farmers has argued to me that farmers should have the choice to
use GMOs. However, if only a minority use GMOs, this could still spell the
end of choice for conventional farmers growing the same produce. Further,
New Zealand farmers have generally enjoyed the freedom to own and propagate
their own seeds. The experience with genetically engineered seeds overseas
has shown that farmers may lose that, amongst other valued freedoms.

7. Are we as New Zealand food producers, sufficiently assured that
genetically modified food is safe for our export markets, for New Zealand
consumers, for our families, for our animals? There is much disagreement
over this issue, and far too little research to date. The British Medical
Association has recently called for a halt to all field trials of GMOs
until sufficient food testing has been completed. Should the fact that
doctors are anxious cause we food producers concern?

The Sustainability Council is pro-science, supports GM research in the
laboratory, and applauds the benefits that, for example, insulin produced
through GM brings to diabetes sufferers.

These are products of the lab, not the land, and they generally do not
impact on the land when used. However, evidence from around the world
proves that there are still many unanswered questions as to GMOs in the
products from our land, and in our precious soils.

We invite Straight Furrow readers to satisfy themselves in respect of the
above and other questions as they contemplate the role of GM in
agriculture. According to a detailed independent survey, half of New
Zealand's farmers would like to see New Zealand GM Free and only 21% intend
to use GM technology. And that was two years ago.

A recent survey conducted by Rural Women of New Zealand, the food providers
of our families, found that 80% of their surveyed members did not want the
moratorium lifted.

Allowing GMOs in our lands may well prove to be the most far reaching and
important decision this generation of farmers will ever face. We need,
urgently, to find answers to the questions GM raises and then to act.

Sir Peter Elworthy was Founding Chair of Ravensdown Fertiliser Company,
founding Chair of the Deerfarmers' Association, and a President of
Federated Farmers. He chairs the Sustainability Council.