Setting GE ground rules

By SIMON COLLINS

Karaka dairy farmers David and Cathy Yates will probably not be planting maize this spring to feed their cows. They have learned from personal experience not to trust merchants touting either chemicals or seed. And after maize seed grown up the road at Pukekohe tested positive for traces of genetically modified organisms last week, the Yates plan to avoid it.

"My health slowly deteriorated and my immune system is shot to pieces after being exposed to 2,4,D and other chemicals that we used to control lucerne flea," says David Yates.

Cathy Yates had a rash for a year after being sprayed on the face with a Monsanto weedicide called Roustabout.

"We just grow a little bit of maize here for silage for our cows. It [the Pukekohe incident] might put me off actually planting a crop this year, just in case it's contaminated," David Yates says.

"My real concern is being unable to trust the integrity of the people selling the stuff, because we know they are out to make a profit."

He will not be alone. One farmer estimates that while three-quarters of North Island farmers growing maize will plant it again this year, up to a quarter will not.

The maize scare, and the 856 submissions heard this week against AgResearch's application to insert genes from various animals into cows, are the kind of thing we must expect more of as we enter the age of biotechnology.

The election has settled one thing. Almost certainly, some genetically modified crops will be approved for release in New Zealand after the present moratorium ends in October next year.

The Greens simply did not win enough votes to keep the country "GE-free".

But if you thought that was the end of the debate, think again.

As the newly sworn-in ministers take their seats around the cabinet table, they will face the GM debate part two - the conditions under which GM organisms will be approved for release, and who will be liable if things go wrong.

Three reports will be ready for ministers to consider almost immediately:

* A biotechnology strategy "to ensure that New Zealand keeps abreast of developments in biotechnology and has a mechanism to ensure ongoing balance between benefits and risks".

* A consultation paper setting out the options for further law changes, including a new category of "conditional release" of genetically modified organisms.

* Appointments to the proposed Bioethics Council. The Cabinet will need to pick between eight and 10 of 90 nominations received to join Sir Paul Reeves, who will chair the council.

Ministers also need to decide what to do about legal liability for damage caused by releases of genetically modified organisms. There is a long agenda of issues which the new Government is committed to tackling during the two-year moratorium which is already almost half over.

Among the thorniest:

Conditional release: The Royal Commission on Genetic Modification recommended a new category of "conditional release" of a new organism, in between research "in containment" and a full commercial release.

The Government accepted the proposal, and officials have come up with a series of questions about the detail, which will be put to the public in the proposed consultation document.

There will be both legal changes and a practical procedure to ensure safe "coexistence" between GM and organic or other non-GM crops.

"You would look at distance between crops so that the pollen could not travel from one crop to another," says Richard Ivess, biosecurity director for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF). "You would also look at temporal [time] distance. So you would plant the organic crop first, and that would have all its pollination finished before the GM crop pollination started."

Liability: The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act provides for up to three months' jail and fines of up to $500,000 plus an extra $50,000 a day for anyone who develops a genetically modified organism without approval or fails to comply with any conditions imposed.

In addition, if a GM crop damages a crop on another farm, the other farmer can sue the GM farmer for damages. Under current law, the claimant would have to show that there was a foreseeable risk of damage, that the GM farmer was negligent and that the negligence caused the harm.

There is also a law, established by court decisions, that there is no need to prove negligence if the harm is caused by a "non-natural" use of the land.

The royal commission said it was "not persuaded that there is anything so radically different in genetic modification as to require new or special remedies".

But the Government referred the issue to the Law Commission. After that commission reported last month, Science Minister Pete Hodgson said officials would do further work, including examining the idea that there might be no need to prove negligence if damage was caused by breaching the conditions of a conditional release.

Tolerance level: The Life Sciences Network, representing biotechnology interests, advocates a "tolerance level" of genetic modification below which there would be no need to get official approvals.

The network's director, Francis Wevers, says the current "zero tolerance" approach to even the smallest GM element - under 0.5 per cent in the Pukekohe maize seed - is impractical.

Argentina, Canada and the US consider that anything lower than a 1 per cent tolerance for GM seeds is unachievable. European Union law allows GM material up to 0.5 per cent provided that it was unintended.

Wevers says the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) should hold a public inquiry into the issue.

Erma chief executive Dr Bas Walker says he has no plans for such an inquiry, but says this could change if the new category of conditional release is allowed.



Research: When it announced the moratorium last year, the Government promised to do more research before October 2003 on "the environmental, economic and social effects of GMOs".

It has let three research contracts: Landcare is developing a "NZ biosafety database" on the vulnerability of various NZ native plants to pollen from GM crops; an Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) study on the risks of modified genes passing from GM plants to earthworms and other organisms through soil bacteria; and a Lincoln University study on public attitudes to biotechnology.

The only economic studies so far on "the economic risks and opportunities" of GM are being done by the Treasury, which plans to develop a computer model to measure the potential costs, risks and gains for New Zealand of both GM technology and the GM-free alternative.

However, the Ministry for the Environment is about to let a contract for independent research on the impact of genetic modification on New Zealand's clean green image.

None of these measures will satisfy GM opponents such as David Yates, whose historic farm on the southern edge of the Manukau Harbour was the original base of the Yates seeds business in New Zealand.

The US seed company Pioneer, represented in this country by relative Philip Yates' company Genetic Technologies, has assured him that its maize seed has been modified only by genes within the maize family.

"As farmers we can accept that. That's just accelerating normal breeding," David Yates says.

"It's the cross-species stuff that we are concerned about - whether it's going to harm other parts of the ecosystem, like the soil life."

Russell Bayley, an organic maize grower near Te Awamutu, says New Zealand would be crazy to plant GM crops when consumers overseas did not want to buy them. "A third of our markets are in Europe. If they do not accept GE, and we can't guarantee GE-free product, they will shut us down." A European Commission study in May, cited by Sustainability Council chair Sir Peter Elworthy, found that it would be "virtually impossible" to avoid some contamination of non-GM crops with GM genes if the two crops were grown in the same region.

GE-Free NZ and the Sustainability Council also want to tighten the law to make importers or producers of GM material liable for any damage that stems from that material, without the usual need to prove negligence.

They also want a law requiring anyone doing GM work to take out insurance that will guarantee a payout to anyone who suffers damage, even years later. Such insurance is required in Germany and Austria. But in New Zealand, Insurance Council chief executive Chris Ryan told the Law Commission that insurance companies would not risk insuring some kinds of GM work "due to the inability to quantify the risk".

"Requiring compulsory insurance is thus likely to block the approval of some projects that might otherwise have received Erma approval," the commission said. It said it was up to the public to decide whether this would be desirable.

For Pacific Seeds, the Australian company whose maize seed tested positive for GM material last week, New Zealand's current laws have already proved expensive. It began destroying its entire NZ maize crop yesterday and has withdrawn from the NZ market for the year.

The maize has cost NZ taxpayers too. Richard Ivess says MAF has put about $80,000 worth of staff time into dealing with the incident, and is paying to have the maize tested again in Australia and the US. He says MAF has picked up these costs this time but next time they will be passed on to the people doing GM work.

Despite outflanking the Greens in the election, Labour and United Future will have to tread carefully if they are to win public support for the new GM regime in the next 14 months.

nzherald.co.nz/ge

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