Soil & Health and GE Free NZ are celebrating the commitment by Crown Research Institute Plant & Food Research to discontinue the genetically engineered brassica field trial at Lincoln in Canterbury less than 2 years into its 10 year consent, but say the CRI’s GE alliums field trial approval must also be revoked.

GE Free NZ President Claire Bleakley and the Soil and Health Association of NZ spokesperson Steffan Browning met with Plant & Food staff yesterday, to discuss the CRI’s internal report of its biosecurity breach at its genetically engineered brassica trial site.

A Crown science institute admits it made serious errors by allowing a controversial genetic engineering trial to breach its strict safety requirements. However, Crop & Food Research believes the environment was at very little risk from its mistakes, and has rejected calls by anti-GE campaigners for such trials to be shut down.

An organic food group is calling for closure of genetically engineered field trials, after finding two safety breaches at a trial site in Canterbury just before Christmas. The Soil and Health Association said a GE brassica plant at a Plant and Food Research site in Lincoln was left in the soil and allowed to flower, potentially putting conventional brassica crops at risk of cross pollination.

Twenty years after the first genetically modified crops (GM) were planted in New Zealand, the fight over so called ”Frankenstein food” is still raging. GM crop trials have been allowed since 1988 but it was not until the moratorium was lifted in 2003, amid loud protest, that applications could be made to grow GM plants commercially. But so-far no New Zealand companies have gone down that path.

Crop and Food Research’s application to grow GE onions, spring onions, leeks and garlic at a 2.5ha secret site near Lincoln has been approved by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma). But the Crown research institute will be allowed to let only a small number of GE onions flower and produce seed, and those plants will have to be contained in double-layered cages to ensure pollinating insects and pollen cannot escape.

A live, genetically modified, canarypox virus vaccine has been given the green light to protect horses in New Zealand if there is a outbreak of equine influenza. If used, it will be the first time a genetically modified organism has been released into the environment. The Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) has approved an application by the Racing Board and Equine Health Association to use the vaccine under certain conditions.

The Environmental Risk Management Authority has made a minor amendment to the AgResearch field test approvals granted in November 1999 and May 2001 respectively, that allowed AgResearch to conduct contained field tests involving GM cattle. [...]

* No new GM cattle can be produced or bred from 18 November 2008.

* The existing GM animals can be kept in outdoor containment to allow for decisions to be made on new applications from AgResearch.

* If the new applications are declined, the GM animals must be euthanized within one year.

GE Free New Zealand is mounting a legal challenge to plans by AgResearch to extend transgenic animal research. The Crown Research Institute has applied to the Environmental Risk Management Authority to continue research into cows that have been genetically modified to include human proteins in their milk. [...] GE Free claims the applications lodged with ERMA are too general and do not give information on the risks, costs and benefits of the proposal.

A Colmar Brunton Omnijet survey of over 1000 people, commissioned by the Soil & Health Association of New Zealand and the national animal advocacy organisation SAFE, found that only 27 per cent of New Zealanders, and just 28 per cent of farmers, support genetic engineering (GE) of animals. However six out of ten farmers (61%) who stated an opinion in the survey said they do not support GE of animals, and almost a third of all farmers surveyed (28%) stated they ’don’t know.’

A Colmar Brunton Omnijet survey of over 1000 people, commissioned by the Soil & Health Association of New Zealand and the national animal advocacy organisation SAFE, found that only 27 per cent of New Zealanders, and just 28 per cent of farmers, support genetic engineering (GE) of animals. However six out of ten farmers (61%) who stated an opinion in the survey said they do not support GE of animals, and almost a third of all farmers surveyed (28%) stated they ’don’t know.’