Friday, March 29, 2024

Mature conversation needed around New Zealand’s GE-free status

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It’s time for a mature discussion on genetic engineering’s place in New Zealand to see if current rules are still fit for purpose.
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It's time for a mature discussion on genetic engineering’s place in New Zealand to see if current rules are still fit for purpose.

If not, the country risks losing out on utilising this technology as a solution to national and global issues as well as being potentially out of step with the needs of global consumers, experts say.

Speaking on a webinar on whether GE was an inevitable probability in New Zealand, AgResearch scientist and researcher John McEwan said New Zealand could utilise this technology to address some of its most pressing issues.

These ranged from stopping invasive pest species, curbing greenhouse gases, faster adaptation to climate change and disease and the adoption of new biological industries that will lead to lower resource use of inputs such as nitrogen fertilisers.

“In my opinion, it’s time for a sensible discussion to commence because New Zealand is facing a number of disruptive challenges to our major exports.”

KPMG global head of agribusiness Ian Proudfoot said the conversation around GE had to involve the Government, science sector and the community.

Gene editing in other countries was creating a more inclusive food system and New Zealand risked being on the wrong side of the ethical debate around GE if it did not have that conversation, he said.

A major New Zealand dairy exporter told Proudfoot they would not lose any customers if they moved into GE.

“The customers that they sell to are sophisticated enough already to understand GM, GE and the gene editing debate and they recognise this is a broad church of technologies where different parts of those technologies can be used quite comfortably alongside each other.

“We need to recognise that consumers can make their own decisions, we shouldn’t be trying to make decisions for them.

“Can we remain competitive without these technologies? I think that’s going to be a big question.”

Proudfoot acknowledged there was a valid argument in amplifying what New Zealand is good at, producing free range, naturally produced non-GM food.

“We could double down on that and really sell the story hard and sell that story at a premium. There is definitely an argument to that and it’s something that needs to be explored.”

However, Proudfoot believed there was not just one answer and around the world there were GE and non-GE systems that co-existed. There was enough capability in New Zealand for it to be able to deliver to the needs of consumers without doing actions that as a country it was uncomfortable with.

“There’s no one size fits all solution here.”

Biotech and GE were a critical debate and New Zealand had to work out how to have that mature conversation, he said.

McEwan said GE was undertaken in New Zealand in containment and there had been no release in over 25 years.

About 30 medical products containing GE were also imported into New Zealand including insulin, used by diabetics.

More recently, all covid vaccines are products of GE and the speed and the specificity of the vaccine production would not have been possible without GE, he said.

“We need similar tools to address for example methane emissions from sheep.”

He said targeted GE methods such as CRISPR are unlikely to cause problems greater than what was occurring naturally in genetic mutations in farm animals.

Addressing the environmental issues facing New Zealand was the way of putting GE back on the agenda, he said.

Proudfoot believed it was up to the corporate sector to drive that conversation. They directly enacted with consumers and were connected to market signals.

“If we wait on the politicians to do it, we’ll be waiting an incredibly long time. If our companies and the science sector can come together and start that conversation, politicians will have no choice but to join.”

McEwan said the risks and opportunities around GE are a lot more clearly defined than they were 40 years ago, but many people’s mindset had not changed over that time.

While the technology had moved enormously, the debate had not moved very far, he said.

Proudfoot said it was an ethics and education issue.

In KPMG’s latest Agribusiness Agenda, the attributes important to consumers are very different and being GE free was rarely a top priority.

“We can’t say generically that GE is an issue for every consumer, because it’s not.”

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