New Zealand’s three-decade ban on genetic modification, explained
New Zealand’s three-decade ban on genetic modification, explained
With National promising to repeal the ban, GM is once again a hot political issue. Why is it so controversial?
The article talks lots about GMO food, which is a valid consideration.
Is it fair to say that another aspect the article seemed to skip over is the potential for genetic modification, gene drives and so on for possible pest control strategies? Something like Crispr wasn't even a concept in 1996 when the current legislation was passed.
NZ has some unique pest problems that are likely to need local research for some of the specifics which might be really really useful here in future, but my understanding is that current GMO-blocking legislation kind of knee-caps a lot of that possible research beyond a certain point and makes it really hard, or impossible.
It might be that it's still appropriate to keep those restrictions in place because these are big decisions with potentially big consequences, or not, but I think it's something that also needs consideration alongside the food angle.
Yeah, I think genetic modification will play a big role in NZ's pest strategy at some point in the future. I doubt the technology's ready yet, especially when it comes to mammals. But it might not be too long until we're able to do something like the stuff they're doing with mosquitoes in the US at the moment.
Great article. I personally hope this ban is lifted, but I'm also worried about who does it.
I would prefer we shy away from roundup ready crops, but would love some crops with built in resistance to disease, like BT crop.
TBH it really seems like a very poor article. While I'm actually in favor of revisiting the GMO regulations, this article only presents one point of view, the positive benefits of GMO, and pretty much ignores the potential negatives.
In other words,typical NZ journalism.
NZ blew it's chances to become a GMO free country and charge premium for it's exports to a segment of the world's population that's willing to pay significantly more for GMO products.
Now they have to join the race to the bottom and compete with massive exporters of foods like Mexico, Canada, USA, China etc and they all subsidise their agriculture which is putting us at a great disadvantage.
We suck at capitalism.
A few years ago I sat in on a talk from a chap by the name of John Knight, who was at the time an economics prof down at Otago. He'd been doing some work with people in Europe, and they'd come to the conclusion that, people usually say they would prefer to buy non-GMO foods, but ...
- If all the prices were the same, people tend to buy non-GMO foods.
- If GMO labeled foods were cheaper, and other customers were present, people would tend to buy non-GMO foods.
- If GMO labeled foods were cheaper and no other customers were present, people tended to buy the GMO labelled foods.
I think that was the rough summary. Not sure how much further that research went, but I thought it was interesting. I ... think this was it - https://www.gefree.org.nz/assets/Clean-Green-Book-email-11.pdf
I don't know that I was ever entirely convinced that there was huge potential for charging a premium due to being a non-GMO country. For a whole bunch of other reasons though, fully on board with your summation: "We suck at Capitalism" :)
I think if you look at populations as a whole most people will just buy the cheapest thing on the shelf. But I am not talking about "most people", there is a significant minority of people who pay for premium products and that's the market I think we should have targeted. We can't compete in the "cheapest price" market.
Hey no one tell anyone but most of the apples we export are man made. Most of hawks bay is dedicated to just growing apples... That were developed in a lab, and the fact is they can't grow well without human intervention ( thinning, pruning, etc)...
Let's not even mention the "organic" pesticides they spray on them that gives you blisters if your in the orchard too long.
So should we just be poor and starve or are we going to actually drop this sharade and try and feed people ?
the fact is they can’t grow well without human intervention ( thinning, pruning, etc)…
That's a bit of an understatement. If you plant an apple tree from a seed you don't even get apples like the apple the seed came from. Every apple tree is grafted onto a tree that isn't even an apple tree.
Let’s not even mention the “organic” pesticides they spray on them that gives you blisters if your in the orchard too long.
People misuderstand the term. "Organic" spray just means not artificial. It's still poison. (There are more requirements for organic food)
So should we just be poor and starve or are we going to actually drop this sharade and try and feed people ?
20 years ago I supported the GMO free stance. You can't really undo it, and there was the potential for premium products. Now, I think that either did or didn't work and we should know by now if the market exists and make a call.
It was a silly law that achieved nothing positive. We consume GM food every day, and there are probably wild gm crops growing in NZ accidently through imports.
But we get no upside. No improved yields or better tasting foods.