New Zealand open to GMO innovation

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis.

Environment Minister Nick Smith says he’s purposefully ‘keeping the door open’ to more genetically modified organism (GMO) releases and “we are not ruling out making further changes beyond those of which we are consulting on currently relative to where the rest of the world is sitting.”

He says plans by some councils to go GM-free are “unrealistic” and “unworkable”; “all the evidence shows that decisions around biotechnology need to be made on a New Zealand-wide basis.”

(Hastings District banned GM crops and animals last month, with mayor Lawrence Yule arguing it protects ‘premium value’ of its food and a GM release would hurt our clean, green image).

It is impractical to have 86 different councils’ rules around GM. We have no biosecurity limits. If you get in a car and you drive from Hastings to Gisborne or to Wairarapa, if you had trees that are GM, there is no biological barrier for those to spread, and so it is impractical and wrong for councils to try and regulate this separately. They are welcome to participate in any public process that the EPA must do if they’re going to release any GM.

I think all the evidence shows that decisions around biotechnology need to be made on a New Zealand-wide basis… We’ve got a very cautious legislative environment. If something like the Arctic apple was to be introduced into New Zealand, there would be a full public process. Councils, like Hastings, would be perfectly proper to participate in that process and express a view.

Read full, original post: Nick Smith keeps door open to more genetically modified organisms

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