'Closing borders' the only insurance against contaminated crops

By SIMON COLLINS and ALAN PERROTT

An expert on genetic modification says New Zealand must expect more contaminated crops unless the border is closed to virtually all seed imports.

The research leader for genetic engineering of vegetables at Crop and Food Research, Dr Tony Conner, said genetic modification was now so widespread that "the concept of 100 per cent GE-free, or absolutely zero GE, content is almost certainly unachievable".

But GM opponents quoted official statistics showing that 99 per cent of all GM crop production last year was still in just four countries: the United States, Canada, Argentina and China.

Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said New Zealand should ban seed imports from North America and try to form a network of non-GM countries to trade maize and other seeds among themselves.

Australian company Pacific Seeds yesterday withdrew from the local maize market for the year after samples of its new hybrids from Pukekohe and Gisborne tested positive this week for possible contamination by GM seeds.

The samples are being held in three secure facilities while more tests are done in Australian and US laboratories for Pacific Seeds, which is owned by Dutch-based Advanta, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Both MAF and the company plan to visit the five farms where the seed was grown to check that safe procedures were followed, including leaving safety margins of 200-300m around each crop.

Pacific Seeds' international manager Nick Gardner said he doubted that his company would bring US maize into New Zealand again.

"We will probably use US germplasm in our breeding programmes but ensure that they are pure in the Australian programme. This time next year we could have seed available in New Zealand from some material in Australia."

But the founder of New Zealand's dominant seed company, Philip Yates of Genetic Technologies, said a ban on North American seed would cause a big reduction in the range of hybrids available.

"If you close the borders you are going to shut down an entire industry with thousands of jobs and severely impact on New Zealand milk production, because a big proportion of the cows are now fed on maize."

Mr Yates, the local agent for the world's biggest seed company, Pioneer, said maize was also a main ingredient for the local poultry and pork industries, cornflakes and starch.

His company imports 40 per cent of its parent seed from North America and 60 per cent from Europe.

Dr Conner said maize was a hybrid crop that quickly lost vitality unless it was crossbred with new varieties every year.

"Many crops and a lot of vegetables are grown that way to take advantage of that hybrid vigour."

Most of the parent seed for each year's new hybrid varieties is imported, because the costs of legally protecting each new variety are now spread over the global market.

"Only 10 to 15 years ago there were lots of little vegetable seed players," Dr Conner said.

"Today they can all be traced back to three or four major players, all European or American."

"If you wanted to block out North America, you would really have to block out the rest of the world because at some point it passed through North America."

But Ms Fitzsimons said it was still too soon to know the effects of GM crops on future generations.

She plans to contact potential international partners who could form part of a non-GM trading network.

Hawkes Bay farmer Hugh Ritchie, who chairs Federated Farmers' Grains Council, said there was no demand for GM maize in New Zealand yet, but that would change if "second-generation" GM produced varieties of maize with health benefits.

Dr Conner said new GM varieties underwent such "huge safety assessments" that he would be more confident of their safety for people than he would be for new non-GM crops.

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