By PHILIPPA STEVENSON
A New Zealand-developed food safety assurance system which could underpin the country's multibillion-dollar food exports could be lost overseas.
Investors here have so far rejected the Massey University system, which has the potential to give New Zealand a significant edge in the increasingly sensitive food safety arena.
The system could also be a significant revenue earner.
Massey University's 70-strong EpiCentre computer software development team already has internationally acclaimed epidemic and agricultural product management systems to its credit.
But EpiCentre director Professor Roger Morris said New Zealand was the hardest of many countries he had worked in to attract backing for innovative work.
"We've developed each of the tools required for the system. We've got all the building blocks developed and tested.
"What we've got to do now - a job costing $10 million to $20 million over five years, not a large amount - is to take the system right through to being operational and marketable.
"At the moment my best prospect is getting [the finance] from Europe, but my concern is that we will lose the intellectual property. I'm getting e-mails almost every day from some of my commercial contacts in Europe who know that we've got the skills and want to draw on them. But I can't get New Zealand to get the thing up."
Professor Morris' frustration comes as Federated Farmers calls for ways to maintain consumer confidence in New Zealand's science-based food safety regime.
Its request follows reports in international media that incorrectly labelled New Zealand as having the brain-wasting scrapie disease in sheep and suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease.
"It is vital that international consumers are told clearly and unequivocally that New Zealand's sheep flocks are free of scrapie, our cattle herds are free of BSE, and that we have the science to prove it," said Dairy Farmers of NZ chairman Charlie Pedersen.
The biggest test was likely to come if someone who had contracted variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, the human equivalent of BSE, in Britain then died in New Zealand, Mr Pedersen said.
"If such an event occurs we will be totally dependent on the faith and confidence international consumers have in the scientific evidence of the health status of our animal population."
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Food Assurance Authority is responsible for developing, setting and administering food safety standards for food exports and for meat and dairy products sold at home.
The organisation leads many international standard-setting bodies that set the framework for world trade in food products.
Professor Morris says the programme, EpiMAN Food Safety, would enhance New Zealand's food assurance record by tracking products from paddock to plate.
The risk-based food safety system would gather information on farms and herds, and then track animals through the marketing chain to supermarket shelves.
It would have web-based, built-in risk assessment processes which would constantly recalculate risks such as chemical contamination, or salmonella, and provide guidance or alerts of possible contamination.
Whenever the system flagged such issues it would suggest choices on what to do for a product and strategies to solve the problem.
Professor Morris is negotiating with several countries and some commercial interests in the European Union on a joint project to work on the system's development.
A proposal went to the Foundation of Research, Science and Technology here but was turned down because "this was an old industry," he said.
Presentations to producer board representatives had attracted only general interest.
But Professor Morris said The Warehouse founder, Stephen Tindall, had been active in "trying to oil the system to get the thing off the ground."
A fledgling group had started to emerge, and Professor Morris intends using $40,000 from funds earned on other work to employ a fulltime staff member for the project.
Investors turn backs on Kiwi innovation
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