Government plays down discovery of contaminated seeds

1.00pm

The Government today played down a discovery of imported maize seed contaminated with genetically engineered (GE) material saying while New Zealand's zero tolerance law had been broken, contamination was "minuscule".

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) director of plant biosecurity Richard Ivess said today that a large quantity of the GE contaminated seed was likely to have been planted and harvested but the level of contamination was "extremely low".

In a hectare of maize of about 80,000 plants, around 40 plants would be GE contaminated, he said.

New Zealand has a zero tolerance for GE material in imported seed and checks have shown some of the seed was wrongly certified by an American company as being GE free.

Dr Ivess said MAF had re-tested 15 of the 52 seed consignments tested by the United States company since January 2003.

Two were found to have GE contamination but at a very low level of about one GE seed per 2000.

About 12,000 imported seeds had been sold around the country, Dr Ivess said.

The seed was imported to supplement an anticipated shortfall of locally produced seed.

"So assuming the seed has been planted, we understand it would have been planted between Northland and Hawke's Bay," he told National Radio.

The seed that had not been planted could be exported back out of New Zealand, or de-natured so it could not be planted here.

Dr Ivess said the companies that had imported the seed were co-operating fully.

MAF was collecting more information to determine what was the best way to respond to the discovery, he said.

Acting Biosecurity Minister Marian Hobbs said the contamination level was "a very minuscule amount" that was "well below" the threshold set by the European Union.

"So I don't think that people's health is endangered and I don't think our environment is endangered but our law is."

ACT deputy leader Ken Shirley said this showed it was "not realistic" to maintain zero tolerance.

"Europe doesn't, most other jurisdictions don't, they set a minimum threshold. That would be the sensible, scientific way to do it but dear old New Zealand has to perpetuate these absolute mantras which makes us the laughing stock of the world," he told National Radio.

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the discovery did, to some extent, compromise New Zealand's reputation with other countries.

Authorities needed to move fast to make sure all that seed was recovered "and if there are plants in the ground that they're pulled out".

Checks should be done to see whether other crops being grown close by had been cross-pollinated, she said.

Dr Ivess said it was "extremely unlikely" crops nearby would have been contaminated.

MAF said the crop was usually used for animal feed and less likely to have been made into corn chips or corn flour.

The remaining 966 bags from the shipment would be seized.

MAF said the best seeds for maize and many vegetable crops came from big breeders in North America, Australia and Europe.

"It is very likely there will continue to be incidents like this one, where GE seeds are present unintentionally," it said in a statement.

"There is always a chance that low concentrations of GE seeds may not be detected, but most of the time they will be."

- NZPA