Buried treasures: Stink surrounds GM onions

Our series shedding light on reports released in the dead days before Christmas continues with a look at a GM experiment by science reporter SIMON COLLINS.


Don't say it too loudly, but in quiet tones the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) has signalled that genetic experiments will no longer get an easy ride to approval.

Three days before Christmas, the authority gave the state-owned Crop and Food Research approval to insert a new gene into onions to withstand the weedkiller glyphosate, commonly known by Monsanto's trade name, Roundup.

Lenka Rochford, of the newly formed People's Moratorium Enforcement Agency, accused the authority of hoping to delay the announcement until just before Christmas when no one would have time to "kick up a stink".

But it would also, she said, give a focus to her group's training camp at Motueka.

"We will be training people to pull up crops, among other things, and the fact that the onions have been approved is good timing," she told the Herald's political editor, Audrey Young.

Yet buried in the evaluation report by Erma staff on the onion case, and in the authority's decision, were several new hurdles which may be much harder to overcome for future applications to genetically modify organisms than they proved to be for the onions.

The authority has never yet turned down any application for genetic modification (GM).

But that may be about to change, judging by three new hurdles: an even tougher approach to safety than the authority has taken in the past; more weight on Maori views; and, for the first time, consideration of "the lost opportunity to do other more valuable research" (the "opportunity cost" of GM research).

Crop and Food won its case because of unique biological features of onions which make them unlikely to contaminate the environment, because it won grudging support from its local iwi, Ngai Tahu, and because in the end Erma decided it did not have enough information to judge which research programme was more valuable than another.

But the first two hurdles will not be so easy to clear in other cases. And on opportunity costs, Erma said: "The uncertainty about the long-term environmental benefits of herbicide-tolerance technology invites the conclusion that this is not soundly based use of research funding. This decision ... should thus not be seen as an endorsement of the decision [by funding agencies] to fund this research."

Dr Colin Eady, the shy British-born geneticist who has been Crop and Food's GM onion expert since 1993, says Erma's decision to approve his next 10 years of research on Roundup-resistant onions was just "one little step" in world terms.

"The genes we have been using have been used on something like 49 million hectares around the world," he said from a motor camp near Takaka where he was holidaying last week with his wife Sarah and three young children.

"How many GM field tests have been done around the world - 15,000 or something? This is just one of those."

Although they are our biggest vegetable export, onions are relatively small in the New Zealand economy, earning just $100 million in export revenue compared with $250 million from wine, let alone $5.5 billion from dairy products. Most are grown around Pukekohe, the Waikato and Canterbury.

But even before Dr Eady came here, scientists at the Lincoln research centre which is now Crop and Food had identified GM onions as a crop in which New Zealand could lead the world.

"We are only aware of one other lab [in the Netherlands] that is capable of this, and they have learnt the technology from Colin," says a Lincoln colleague, Dr Tony Conner.

"It's been a particularly difficult crop. Big biotech companies tend to focus on the big, broad-acre crops first, and onions are relatively unimportant compared with wheat, rice, corn, soy, cotton and rape."

Onions are poor competitors with weeds, and Dr Eady says growers spray up to 16 litres of various weedkillers on every hectare of onions to control the weeds.

He says that could be cut by 70 per cent to just 4.5 litres of Roundup and half a litre of another poison if onions can be modified to withstand the Roundup.

Growers would save about $500 a hectare, or 2 per cent of the total value of onion exports, in direct weedkiller costs. They would also save on time and fuel because Roundup would need to be sprayed only twice a year.

"Effective weed control will also reduce the need to till the soil, thus helping to [prevent soil loss through erosion]," Dr Eady told the authority.

Crop and Food believes antagonism to genetic modification in our main onion markets, Europe and Japan, will dissipate by the time Dr Eady completes his 10-year research programme involving five cycles of onion crops.

"In 10-14 years' time, when the above lines are likely to be commercial reality, genetically modified products will be commonplace, and reduced pesticide application and efficiency in production will be key [consumer concerns] along with health and flavour," the institute said in its application.

It has licensed a US company, Seminis, to do field tests on its Roundup-resistant onions for the world market. If they succeed, Seminis will pay royalties to Lincoln.

Dr Conner says field tests are needed in New Zealand too because the onions grown here and in Australia have been bred to suit our conditions. The research will cost $150,000 a year for 10 years, or 0.4 per cent of Crop and Food's total budget.

This "little step" in scientific terms has become the focus of huge concerns among ordinary New Zealanders. A Herald-DigiPoll survey in August found that 68.6 per cent opposed lifting the three-year moratorium on GM releases in October.

When Dr Eady plants his first batch of GM onions this coming August in a garden-sized plot at Lincoln, they will be the only GM plants outside glasshouses in New Zealand apart from pine trees at Rotorua.

Erma was swamped with 1924 submissions against his plan. Only eight submissions supported him, and one was neutral.

There were 1390 submissions from people who used forms from websites, mainly Greenpeace sites.

The other 534 submissions, some up to 24 pages, were agonised cries from individuals such as Lyndsay Nichols of Russell, who wrote: "GE is suicide for the human race. It is untried. Its results cannot be undone."

Even though Erma eventually gave Dr Eady a green light, its reports make it clear that it is aware of those public concerns. It felt safe in approving GM onions only because they do not flower until their second year, and will be moved into glasshouses after one year.

The authority told off Dr Eady sternly for failing to consult with local Maori, and made him revise his application with iwi input.

In their evaluation, Erma officials noted "potential indirect adverse effects of significance to Maori" through any unintended transfer of genes from the GM onions to other species and because of a likely increased use of Roundup.

The local iwi, Ngai Tahu, told the authority that it opposed releasing any GM organisms into the environment and preferred "less risky alternatives such as mechanical weeding or alternatives employed by organic or spray-free croppers".

But in the end Ngai Tahu agreed not to oppose Dr Eady's research because the research itself would help to answer some of the tribe's concerns. Erma approved the research subject to ongoing consultation with the local hapu at Lincoln.

High-profile protesters leave the direct action to others

Lenka Rochford of the People's Moratorium Enforcement Agency says she will not personally pull out genetically modified onions at Lincoln, but she supports those who will.

Like Crop and Food scientist Colin Eady, Ms Rochford was born in Britain but came to New Zealand "ages ago".

She lived overseas for five years until a year ago, but now studies ethics and international relations at Victoria University. She believes it is ethically justified to break a law which 68.6 per cent of New Zealanders opposed in a Herald-DigiPoll survey last August.

"Nelson Mandela said that when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes a duty," she said last week from Waihopai, near Blenheim, where she was part of a protest camp against an American communications base.

Ms Rochford said truly democratic governments would listen to a majority of their citizens.

"They are just not listening."

She and her group's other spokeswoman, Victoria University media studies student Felicity Perry, say they will not pull up onions personally only because they have been identified in the media.

"The police and law enforcers will turn to us first," Ms Perry said. "So we don't think we will be personally undertaking any direct action. We are advocating direct action, but we will leave it to those with faces that are not splashed over the news."

Ms Rochford said people had been trained in how to pull up GM crops at a training camp at Motueka this month. "I hope that action is taken."

Why news was late

Erma chairman Neil Walter says the authority embargoed news of its approval for Crop and Food's genetically modified onion research until December 23 to give those who made submissions the "courtesy" of being informed first.

By law, the authority had to decide on the issue within 30 working days of completing its hearings in Christchurch on November 5. That time was up on Wednesday, December 17.

Mr Walter said the decision was actually signed off on that day by a committee delegated to consider the onion case.

"We then did the final editing and made sure we had the documentation in place and sent it out, I think, on the Thursday under embargo to the applicant [Crop and Food] and all submitters that we could contact, in some cases by email and in some cases by post," he said.

A press release was emailed to news media at 5.33pm on Friday, December 19, with a press conference set for noon on Tuesday, December 23. The announcement was embargoed until 4pm on that Tuesday.

But the information spread quickly and was reported briefly in most newspapers on December 20.