2008 Proposals for new regulations for the management of genetically modified crops under the Hazardous Subtances and New Organisms Act 14-8-08

Publications & Resources

14 August 2008

GM Crop Management
C/o ERMA New Zealand
PO Box 131
WELLINGTON

Proposals for new regulations for the management of genetically modified crops under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. A response to Cabinet Minutes CBS Min (08) 13/24.

1. PSGR strongly supports improved regulations that bolster biosecurity, and ensure conventional and organic growers and honey producers can continue to grow and market non-GE products without fear of unchecked transgenic contamination.
1.1. It is vital that New Zealand protects its ‘GE free’ and ‘Clean Green’ image that is fundamental to the on-going success of its exports and tourism, and the on-going success of its local food manufacturers meeting the demands of domestic and overseas consumers and customers. It has been well reported that the slightest level of transgenic contamination results in products being rejected. With New Zealand’s overseas customers, this can be a particularly costly experience for businesses.
1.2. PSGR welcomes an initiative that would ensure conventional and organic growers, honey producers, and domestic manufacturers, have an assurance about the integrity and marketability of their products and, with local community councils, freedom from responsibility for inadvertent transgenic contamination.

2. PSGR welcomes this opportunity to improve legislation in respect of GMOs. However, before any releases of GMOs occur, we strongly advocate that each formal application to ERMA that seeks controlled release of a GMO should be required to provide complete scientific documentation of the intrinsic design of each new genetic-construct that enables its detection and identification during relevant HGT and LGT monitoring activities carried out under field conditions. No conditional release approval should be granted by ERMA without
the applicant first providing ERMA with this necessarily relevant bio-security information.

3.   PSGR also proposes:
(a)   Provision of a greater regulatory level of transparency, accountability and public openness in the management of GMOs in New Zealand.
(b)   Rigorous control of any release, including strict conditions for monitoring and auditing. Any release should be restricted to proscribed, controlled growing areas, and not released onto the open market.
(c)   Rigorous, effective legislation to ensure that a domestic liability regime effectively addresses accountability and redress for transgenic contamination including penalties for negligence, nuisance and breach of statutory compliance. This accountability and redress lies with the developer, seed supplier, transporter, and grower, and not with local growers or beekeepers, local councils, or NZ food manufacturers.   Transgenic contamination should not be a fiscal drain or create a health risk to society.
(d)   Every New Zealander has the basic human right to have the choice of consuming GE-free foods, and for every conventional or organic grower or producer, beekeeper, and food manufacturer to maintain the right to grow or produce clearly labelled and defined products free of transgenes.

4. PSGR proposes that an acceptable standard of segregation to New Zealand growers and businesses should mandatorily involve public and independent debate and scrutiny on a case-by-case basis. Such a standard should be designed to achieve no detectable contamination of any conventional crop, any processed product, or any non-transgenic organism from that area.
Applicants should be required to comprehensively and accountably demonstrate that the systems they have in place to meet this standard include the following:
(a)   Segregation of transgenic plants in the field from any other crops or production in the immediate vicinity, in particular conventional crops and honey production.
(b)   Not growing any transgenic crop where a conventional crop of the same species is growing in the area, or related to wild relatives growing in that area.
(c)   Segregation of harvesting and other machinery used in handling or transporting GE crops and processing them; such machinery not being used on non-GE crops or production.
(d)   Segregation during transport, storage, processing and packing, using storage areas, vehicles and machinery set aside solely for transgenic materials.
(e)   Disposal of the by-products of GE crops, including containment of debris at harvest time to prevent it being dispersed by wind, rain or thermals; collection of crop-stubble for disposal by on-site incineration, and realistic monitoring for transgene transfer at the GE field site to soil and other local organisms.
(f)   Clear identification of transgenic livestock and of the boundaries of the land containing them; safe, contained handling and disposal of their waste products while on that land; and regular and realistic monitoring for horizontal gene transfer to soil or other organisms in the immediate vicinity.
(g)   Clear identification of transgenic animals for the purposes of their transportation, and at sale yards and abattoirs suitably equipped for safe, contained processing or incineration of their waste.
(h)   Safe, contained handling of GE animal vaccinations containing living transgenic organisms; independent research to find measures that ensure that living transgenic organisms cannot affect other organisms, and to establish whether or not the living organisms can potentially be transferred through faeces to soil and other organisms; and a system to independently test at any stage for the presence of the GMOs in the animals or organisms in the associated area.
(i)   Safe, contained handling of transgenic fish and seafoods, rather than cages or facilities in open water. Claims regarding triploid fish being sterile have been proven false.
(j)   There should be unequivocal contractual acceptance by every Applicant to meet all costs associated with developing, implementing and maintaining the above systems. These should be mandatory standards for every Applicant. Had these requirements been in force in 2003, ERMA would have been required to decline GMF03001 (GE Onions field trial: reference GF03001 ERMA Decisions, Section 2.7.3 [specifically 2.7.3.6] on p. 34).

5.   PSGR encourages putting in place more stringent and independent regulation and monitoring of genetically modified organisms. Any changes to legislation or regulation should fully address the following primary issues:
(a)   Protection of the New Zealand environment and indigenous and introduced species from the uncontrolled introduction of transgenes from GMOs. There is ample evidence that transgene containment under field conditions is both problematical and complex.
(b)   Protection of New Zealand farmers, honey producers, manufacturers and exporters including the expanding and in-demand organic market. Releases and promotions of genetically modified organisms overseas have failed to provide the promised increase in crop yields, reduced use of agricultural chemicals and expansion areas given over to genetically modified crops. Nor has it provided the promised financial returns.
(c)   Protection of New Zealanders. It is premature to contemplate GMOs entering the food chain or contaminating conventional food sources. The implementation of long- term, independent safety tests on the effects of daily ingestion of a variety of GE foods is conspicuously absent.
The advantages claimed by vested interests are short term, and are not in the long-term interests of New Zealand or New Zealanders. Too much emphasis is given to the short-term gains by those with vested interests, and insufficient emphasis given to the long-term effects on society and the environment.

6. PSGR proposes that GMO decision making, regulations and legislation requires a genuinely independent body representative of New Zealand society, comprising individuals who represent a wide range of philosophical backgrounds and disciplines with no affiliations to political parties and industries with vested interests: for example, physicians, scientists and others involved in the science, in epidemiology, and in animal welfare and rights; experts in law and economics; ethicists; interested non-government organizations, and the general public.

7. PSGR supports open, accessible public and publicised registers:
(a)   Of GMOs approved for field use in New Zealand, and locations where they are being handled or grown;
(b)   Of locations where there has been a failure to comply with conditional release GMO controls; and
(c)   Of each location where field contamination from a GMO transgene has been detected and identified.
PSGR also proposes that such registers be maintained in perpetuity, together with stringent auditing of compliance requirements.

8. PSGR proposes mandatory labelling for all imported material/s containing GMOs that could be propagated or which could self-replicate. Traceability would apply with labelling at the initial point of production and end at the final consumer. It can be achieved by:
(a)   More stringent segregation and traceability controls on all GMOs at any point of transfer and usage;
(b)   Having monitoring facilities available at point of sale;
(c)   More stringent and extensive examination of imported materials at point of entry into New Zealand.

9. PSGR proposes that the drafted template code of practice for segregation should mandatorily include public and independent as well as industry consultation and input. There should be:
(a)   Robust, independent management and consultation comprising individuals who represent a wide range of philosophical backgrounds and disciplines without affiliations to political parties or industries with vested interests;
(b)   A facility for an oversight committee, also comprising individuals who represent a wide range of philosophical backgrounds and disciplines without affiliations to political parties or industries with vested interests; and
(c)   A facility for government to intervene and overturn decisions, with public consultation in that decision making, where independent oversight finds the decisions inappropriate.

10. PSGR proposes that independent analysis and monitoring of GMO approvals should also be in place to assess liability for the GMO contamination that will occur. Local governments and their communities can utilize the Resource Management Act (RMA) 1991 in the drafting of district plan changes to control GMO applications in their area as is their statutory right.
Primary responsibility for the consequences of transgene contamination and redress must lie with the developer, producer, importer and grower of GMOs, not local communities and councils.

11. PSGR also proposes that New Zealand plays an active role in developing an international liability regime in line with the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.

12. PSGR proposes that government needs to appoint an independent research team to explore the prevention of secondary or unintended contamination by GMOs, or the unintended or unforeseen field propagation of transgenes through inappropriate field management, and transport and handling, or through medical and veterinary uses of live organisms that find their way into the physical, soil-plant-animal and human environments.

PSGR will not speak to this submission and does not require its details or submission to remain confidential.

Signed by the Trustees of Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics and its members

Paul G Butler, BSc, MB, ChB, Dip. Obst. (Auckland), FRNZCGP
General Practitioner, AUCKLAND

Bernard J Conlon, MB, BCh, BAO, DCH, DRCOG, DGM, MRCGP (UK), FRNZCGP
General Practitioner, MURUPARA

Elvira Dommisse BSc (Hons), PhD, Mus.B, LTCL, AIRMTNZ
Scientist, Crop & Food Research Institute (1985-1993), working on GE onion programme.
CHRISTCHURCH

Michael E Godfrey, MBBS, FACAM, FACNEM
Director, Bay of Plenty Environmental Health Clinic, TAURANGA

Neil Macgregor, BSc, MSc, PhD
Soil Microbiologist, Institute of Natural Resources, Massey University,
PALMERSTON NORTH

Peter R Wills, BSc, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Auckland, AUCKLAND

Robert G Anderson, BSc, PhD
Lecturer retired, TAURANGA

Jean Anderson
Businesswoman retired, TAURANGA.

Ends

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