Dialogue: World's big markets want a healthier way to eat

Contrary to the claims made for genetically modified crops, it is becoming increasingly clear they are neither needed nor beneficial, writes ROBERT ANDERSON*.

Several points in the Dialogue article by Professor Dick Bellamy, headlined "Our future depends on GM technology", should be addressed.

The genetic modification issue is not opposed simply by a vociferous anti-GM minority.

An ever-growing number of renowned scientists in New Zealand and worldwide have grave concerns about GM technology. Many are eminent geneticists.

And only a very skewed survey concluded that 2 per cent of New Zealanders had GM concerns. Ten thousand people do not march up Queen St without good reason.

New Zealand will also not be left to defend traditional markets against the challenge of superior products. Those products no longer have much market appeal. Sri Lanka recently refused to take New Zealand cheese.

The Dairy Board should be aware that consumers are wary of products from animals fed on plants of unknown properties. In 1995-96, when the first transgenic crops were grown commercially, America exported 2.8 million tonnes of corn to the European Union. By this year the figure had dropped to 2300 tonnes.

From 1995 to last year, the United States lost 14.3 per cent of its share of the export soy market, and soybean farming is now buoyed by a 70 per cent Government subsidy. Both drops resulted from consumer rejection of GM foods. Such losses could not be sustained by our primary industry and our export markets have said they do not want GM foods.

Will huge advances be made through GM technology? Little has materialised to date. Most transgenic crops (70 per cent) are tolerant to broad-spectrum proprietary herbicides or engineered with Bt-toxins to kill insect pests.

A university-based survey of 8200 field trials of the most common GM crop, herbicide-tolerant soya beans, revealed yields down 6.7 per cent and two to five times more herbicide use than non-GM varieties.

Studies continue to document problems of erratic performance, gene silencing, disease susceptibility, fruit abortion and poor economic returns to farmers.

The Royal Commission on Genetic Modification did a commendable job, but New Zealand must not assume that its report was an authoritative evaluation of relevant scientific knowledge.

A recommendation worth following is that the Environmental Risk Management Authority not approve releases or trials of genetically modified organisms until research on the environmental impacts on soils and ecosystems, relative to the application, has been carried out - that is, before the release of transgenic organisms. This is an eminently scientific precaution.

The facility to patent crops and seeds is an anathema. Patents on genes and life-forms are simply stealing from nature.

As Dr Mae-Wan Ho said: "They threaten food security and they violate basic human rights and dignity. They also compromise health care and impede medical research."

There is a growing worldwide consumer resistance to GM foods. It is most unlikely that New Zealand will suffer by awaiting results of research into possible hazards of GM technology.

The export market for GM-free and organic foods is growing rapidly.

GM insulin is taken by most, but not all, diabetics and most informed people have no problem, as the royal commission pointed out, with fully contained medical research.

The problems lie in releasing novel organisms of unknown properties into the environment.

The anti-GM lobby is aware that we do not have half-human sheep. What is abhorred is the immoral promises of an agricultural research establishment trying to pass animals off as medicine generators.

Consumers are promised fruit and vegetables that deliver medicines, cows' milk to generate base myelin protein for MS sufferers and sheep producing AAT protein to cure cystic fibrosis.

American research has discredited myelin as beneficial to MS sufferers.

We do not have an excellent regulatory framework. The ERMA has proved to be nothing more than an expensive rubber stamp, approving virtually every application.

It becomes increasingly clear that GM crops are neither needed nor beneficial. They are a dangerous diversion preventing the essential shift to sustainable agricultural practices that can provide food security and health around the world.

Professor Bellamy says GM organisms do not present serious environmental concerns. But the hazards of GM crops are openly acknowledged by the British and American Governments.

Britain's Agriculture Ministry admits the transfer of GM crops and pollen beyond the planted fields is unavoidable. This has already resulted in herbicide-tolerant weeds.

The Canadian Government acknowledges the problem of superweeds. Canadian export canola seed has been contaminated.

Monsanto has withdrawn its contaminated Quest variety, and the EU planted more than 6000ha last year with canola contaminated by unspecified transgenic traits.

New Zealand's beekeepers are concerned over plantings of GE cultivars. Thousands of tons of Canadian honey were refused by the EU because of GM contamination. And so it goes on.

Professor Bellamy's use of a quote from Sir Ernest Rutherford was appropriate. It matches that of his nuclear colleague, Robert Oppenheimer, who said after finishing the Los Alamos project: "My God, my God, what have I done?"

Let us think, indeed.

* Dr Robert Anderson, of Tauranga, is a member of the Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics.

nzherald.co.nz/ge

Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification

GE lessons from Britain

GE links

GE glossary