Use of GM land worries Greens

The Green Party is disappointed that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry allowed corn to be sown again in 26 fields found to be contaminated with small amounts of genetically engineered seed last season.

But the ministry's biosecurity eradication programme manager, Ian Gear, says the protocols put in place for replanting were appropriate and carefully considered.

The genetically engineered corn, planted last season, passed into New Zealand after the testing laboratory, Biogenetic Services, wrongly reported low-level GE contamination as negative results. The crop was harvested.

About 300 to 400ha in Gisborne, Hawkes Bay, Waikato and Northland were planted with the maize containing low levels of GE seed last spring. In Gisborne there were five properties involving 100ha.

Environment Minister Marian Hobbs confirmed that corn crops had this season been planted in 26 of the 34 fields implicated last time, 25 in maize and one in sweetcorn.

Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said: "This is not a best-practice biosecurity system. There is a real risk that GE seed from last season's contaminated crop could have germinated this year and been hidden in this year's crop.

She said such plants had already been found in eight of the fields. The plants were killed.

"The fields should have been used for other crops for a year in order to find and weed out any corn plants.

"If this is typical of MAF procedures generally, our biosecurity and our GE-free status at the border is seriously at risk."

Mr Gear said protocols about what would be required were set in place before replanting. Most of the land was replanted in maize, one field was in sweetcorn, and others in squash and grass. A series of inspections were done to make sure any contaminated plants were removed.

Cultivation and the use of herbicide before planting helped minimise the risk.

The stray plants were easily recognised because of the way maize was planted and plants that appeared out of the rows were removed as were any plants that were different.

An important consideration when allowing growers to replant maize was the end use of each crop, he said.

If a plant from the contaminated crop survived the field inspections in the sweetcorn crop, it would be harvested before it was mature and would have ended up in the fresh sweetcorn market. The probability of this happening was very low and the contamination would be extremely diluted, said Mr Gear.

If the corn was grown for silage or green feed, the plants would have been eaten before the cobs matured.

Seed maize was not grown on any of the affected land, and after harvest maize that had been grown would be processed and the seeds would be crushed and devitalised.

- NZPA