Richard Randerson: Many angles to consider in assessing GM debate

COMMENT

The findings of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification were straightforward. It concluded that there were potential medical and agricultural advantages for New Zealand from GM technology but significant safety and environmental questions to be resolved ahead of any open GM release.

It also found that freedom of choice for consumers and producers was an important objective. Effective strategies had, therefore, to be devised for the testing and labelling of food, and for co-existence between GM and non-GM crops.

The commission also noted that consumer resistance to GM food was strong in this country and abroad. In deciding whether to allow selected GM usages here, consideration had to be given to the likely impact on export markets.

Two years later, the appropriateness of those recommendations is unchanged. The Government adopted the bulk of them to address the key issues of environmental safety, co-existence and national economic advantage.

Not a lot has changed since the commission reported. Public anxiety is high, but the quality of much of the public debate has been disappointing. Having spoken at public meetings and seminars, my experience has been that many people know little of the commission's findings and are grateful to have the issues laid out.

Nonetheless, public anxiety is appropriate in the absence of answers to the questions identified by the commission. The Royal Society report on field trials in Britain, which showed a loss of biodiversity in some (but not all) fields planted with GM crops, raised important questions.

But the report also noted that biodiversity had been decimated by 30 years of intensive farming, so that GM might be no more than one strand within the much larger problem of farming practices. The implications of such reports for New Zealand need careful study before decisions are made.

Strategies for co-existence between crops are already a feature of our farming, and could be developed further to cope with the advent of GM crops. Farmers take care not to spray in wind conditions likely to blow spray on to neighbours' crops.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has tables setting separation distances for achieving standards of purity in the growing of commercial seed. The distances vary according to the capacity of different pollens to travel in the open environment.

In further exploring the issue of co-existence, the commission noted that different species of crops may grow side by side without risk to one another. GM pine trees would not be a threat to organic vegetables.

As a case study, the commission discussed the importance to the kiwifruit industry of retaining GM-free production, and suggested one co-existence strategy might be the exclusion of a particular GM crop from a region where it would be a threat to an established industry.

Because of such options, the commission rejected the idea of a blanket GM ban. Careful selection case by case, crop by crop, region by region meets better the freedom-of-choice objective the commission judged appropriate in the light of evidence received.

Many fear the irreversibility of GM crops in the open environment. There might be that danger with some crops, just as gorse and possums are practically irreversible.

It is the task of the Environmental Risk Management Authority to ensure that crops with such characteristics are never released here. It is highly unlikely that gorse and possums would be approved for release under today's regulatory regime.

The case for maintaining a clean, green image by remaining GM-free in food production has been frequently advanced, especially in the face of continuing consumer resistance.

However it seemed to the commission that much of this resistance was based on uncertainty over the safety of GM food, and that, should the safety issues be resolved, the resistance might well diminish.

In terms of markets, the bulk of our exports comprise basic commodities, such as meat, wool and dairy products. It is in these areas that many of the potential gains from GM are to be found. Banning GM could thus make exports uncompetitive, with consequential damage to the economy.

One potential benefit of GM crops is the reduction in use of chemical fertilisers, herbicides and insecticides, with the polluting runoffs into rivers and lakes. New Zealand is also one of the world's biggest users of 1080 poison for possum control, so GM technologies, such as immuno-contraception, have the capacity to deliver additional environmental benefits.

The commission was charged to consider the ethical dimensions of GM and, as a prelude to its report, listed seven values it believed most New Zealanders would aspire to. Among these were the preservation of our unique ecosystem, the well-being of all citizens, sensitivity to culture and the Treaty of Waitangi, acknowledging our role in a global context, and the freedom to make choices that do not impinge on the freedom of others.

Among Maori, religious and environmental groups alike there was a sense of the sacredness of the Earth. From this derived a responsibility to exercise kaitiakitanga (guardianship), using the Earth's resources in a way that advanced the well-being of all species while also ensuring long-term eco-sustainability.

Similar values are enshrined in the 1996 Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, which requires the risk management authority to safeguard the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil and ecosystems, and the economic, social and cultural well-being of present and future generations.

The authority is further charged with giving effect to the principles of the treaty, and taking into account the economic and related benefits of any new organism. The HSNO Act is comprehensive, and the authority's processes have been tightened.

The commission also recommended adequate research funding for organic and other sustainable agricultural systems. Post-moratorium, New Zealand should, therefore, see the advance of GM-free forms of agriculture, while at the same time carefully regulated field trials allow for extensive GM testing.

The open release of any GM crop would be well down the track and dependent on the risk management authority's further assessment of the crucial safety, co-existence and market issues.

* Royal Commission member Richard Randerson is Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell.