Federated Farmers has reviewed its legal position on the GMO issue in the Northland RPS, and remains strongly of the view that the central government agency with the mandate and expertise is best placed to assess science and safety aspects.
Recent legal advice to the Federation was that amendments to the Resource Management Act meant our Court of Appeal action was less likely to succeed. We concluded it would be more productive to sit down with the Northland local authorities and try to work out where the new boundaries on their jurisdiction to manage genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in Northland now lie.
Read more: Big win for GE-Free Northland
From our point of view, the broader principle is that citizens, including farmers, should be free to do things that have been approved by the Environment Protection Agency.
Would any sane person argue, for example, that councils should be permitted to ban a certain type of road vehicle that has been permitted by the Land Transport Agency? If, in the future, the EPA approves a GMO for commercial use, farmers should be permitted to use it, as long as that use is in accordance with EPA's conditions of release. That right shouldn't be cancelled at the whim of a council.