Editorial: Scientific care can give sense a win

Lobbyists for farmers, scientists and research institutes have hailed the Government's decisions on genetic modification as a victory for science, progress and prosperity. Groups opposed to GM field trials are incensed. The Green Party is digging in for a return bout at the election next year, and wilder types are threatening to dig out trial crops.

Any such criminality should be met with the full force of the law, which did not appear to be the case when a crop of modified potatoes was pulled out by "Wild Greens" near Christchurch in 1999. Their spokesman, Nandor Tanczos, entered Parliament on the Green Party list later that year. He still maintains wilful destruction in these circumstances is "legitimate".

He might have learned from two years in the legislature that this country is an electoral democracy with sound and civilised procedures in which all arguments can be heard and decisions fairly reached. There is no excuse for the disappointed to set about destroying the work and property of others. If they believe a majority of voters are equally disappointed, they have the chance to test that belief a year from now.

But the reaction of both sides to the Government's decision is not necessarily an indication of the way the country is going. The GM industry greets the decision with relief, just as it did the royal commission's report, because it knew that in the climate of the times each could have been much worse.

Likewise, the Greens lament the decision, as they did the report, because they expected something much more favourable to their point of view. Science needed this "victory" more than the Greens did, and that tells which side has the upper hand.

The whole exercise since the change of Government has left genetic science more restricted and facing higher hurdles than it did before. Testing in the open environment has not been banned, as the Greens hoped and the GM industry feared, but field trials can proceed only under more stringent rules of containment and with mandatory destruction of all heritable material afterwards.

Those conditions would seem to render field trials somewhat artificial and raise questions of whether they can be reliable guides to the safety of GM crops in a real situation. The Greens would be certain to raise that question if field trials produce no evidence of GM dispersal over the next two years. Fortunately, however, their co-leader, Jeanette Fitzsimons, declared this week that she does not believe genetically modified crops can be safely contained. That rather negates the party's ability to deny the realism of the exercise.

The containment requirements go far beyond buffer zones and screens against the spread of seeds and pollen. The soil in which experimental crops are grown may have to be sealed off and, at the end of the trial, be "decontaminated" or even removed entirely.

As far as the soil is concerned, it should be emphasised, these precautions may not be necessary. Nobody knows whether modified genes can be transferred by ordinary soil bacteria to wreak a genetic modification on other plants. It has not happened so far but, responsibly, scientists cannot rule it out. Somewhat less responsibly, environmentalists talk as though "horizontal gene transfer" was an established likelihood.

The most sensible comment on the Government decision came from the Association of Crown Research Institutes. Its president, Dr John Hay, said the GM debate was not over and scientists had still to ensure it was well-informed. Now that the royal commission has distilled the issues and some ground rules have been set by the Government, the debate moves from the general to the particular.

As approval is sought for specific field trials, many of the now familiar issues will resurface. But science can more easily deal with specified problems than generalised assertions. Several cases commonly cited against genetic research did not stand up under the royal commission's inquiry.

If the science proceeds now with due care, common sense can win in the end.

nzherald.co.nz/ge

Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification

GE lessons from Britain

GE links

GE glossary