Growers: tears in GM onions

New Zealand should be looking at other ways to control weeds rather than by producing herbicide tolerant onions, growers say.

Hawkes Bay onion growers say New Zealand is endangering its international clean, green reputation by even considering planting the onions modified to make them tolerant to the active ingredient in the weedkiller Roundup.

The Environmental Risk Management Authority last week began considering an application to grow the genetically engineered onions in a controlled field trial.

The application is supported by Federated Farmers, whose spokesman, Hugh Ritchie, said the application would build on research already under way with the potential to benefit producers, consumers and the environment.

Conventional onion crops are sprayed at least 10 times with a variety of herbicides during their growing season. Roundup-tolerant onions would need to be sprayed about five times instead, mostly with Roundup rather than other herbicides.

But John Bostock, who grows more than 300ha of onions a year, says none of New Zealand's export markets wanted anything to do with GM onions and there was negligible financial benefit anyway.

He said savings on sprays of 1c/kg of onions would not be passed on to the consumer and were far outweighed by the cost of the GM seed.



He suggested precision weeding along the lines of the GPS systems already in use for precision planting.

"These technologies have far wider application and greater value to New Zealand than this GE madness."

Growers should be market-driven, providing what the consumer wanted now rather than trying to anticipate what the market might want in 10 years.

Roundup-resistant weeds were another worry.

"New Zealand has a wonderful image abroad. Why would we waste it with no apparent benefit?"

Tim Averill, who grows about 60ha of onions a year, said he shared Mr Bostock's concerns.

He said there were potentially great advantages in GM but at the moment it was not what the market wanted.

Some weeds were already resistant to Roundup so other chemicals would be needed to control them anyway.

"We need to be market-driven and there are other avenues to look at before we take on GE."

- NZPA