GM-free status sees NZ eggs fetch premium price in US

By SIMON COLLINS

Free-range eggs from South Auckland are worth 12 times as much as local eggs in California because New Zealand is free of genetic modification.

That was the message to Parliament's education and science committee from Graeme Carrie, of the Pukekohe-based Free Range Egg and Poultry Company (Frenz).

His company earned $1 million from the United States last year by selling 2 tonnes a week of free-range organic eggs at US$5.99 ($10.24) a half-dozen - even though consumers could buy 12 battery-produced eggs for US95c ($1.62).

Mr Carrie sold wetsuits to the US Navy, but got into free-range eggs in 1989 because no one else was selling them in America.

"We had been going up and down to the US for many years and we noticed that the natural foods industry was growing. It's growing by 27 per cent a year. Ordinary food is only growing at 3 per cent," he said.

Mr Carrie, now a passionate believer in organic food, decided to go to Wellington and tell MPs his story when he was approached to sign a petition against ending the present ban on genetically modified foods.

"Someone has to hit them over the head with a four-by-two. I really was not going to stand aside and let this go on."

On Friday, he asked MPs, who are considering criteria for "conditional release" of new organisms, to extend the ban on new releases for a further five years. The ban is due to end in October.

Mr Carrie now has competitors in the US market, but still gets two to three times the price of other free-range eggs because "we are the best and because there are two other things that other eggs don't have".

"They don't have the salmonella-free status that New Zealand has [and] ... New Zealand is trusted as a GE-free country".

There was huge potential for companies to use that trust to sell all kinds of foods, Mr Carrie said. The US egg market alone was worth more than $2 billion.

But the entire business would go out the door if New Zealand allowed genetically modified food crops.

Former Whangarei National MP John Elliott said the Australian National Party was calling for a permanent ban on genetic modification, and he urged the NZ National Party to do the same.

Environment Bay of Plenty said councils should have the power to block any GM applications in their districts, either for specific planning reasons or because their communities chose to stay "GE-free".

The New Organisms and Other Matters Bill, which the MPs are considering, says in an explanatory note that councils "may be asked to consider introducing additional controls under the Resource Management Act" as part of a conditional release of a GM organism.