\t\t\t\tReading Time: 3 minutes<\/p>\n
By Ruth and Mike Williams, Nick Collins. Sheep and beef farmers, writing on behalf of Concerned Farmers NZ.<\/p>\n
Whether you\u2019re a farmer excited about what GMOs might be able to do for your farm or whether you think GMOs will hurt your farm profitability and the New Zealand brand, the news that Parliament is taking more time to finalise its review of the Gene Technology Bill is somewhat encouraging.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because our farms will be at the front line of decisions about GMOs in the field. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The call for extra time shows Parliament sees that there\u2019s a lot to still get right, but it would be wrong to assume that farming will get what it needs from another three weeks in Wellington.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the get-go, it has been clear that the government was listening only to scientists, those with commercial interests in GM and to Wellington bureaucrats who clearly know little, if anything, about farming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Farmers have barely had a look-in and the industry bodies that should represent our interests have dropped the ball or circled the wagons around their corporate offices.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bill before Parliament is a radical change from the current market-oriented approach. It won\u2019t so much align us with Australian farmers as put us out in front with United States commodity farmers who can only sell their GM crops for biofuels, animal feed or unlabelled food products.<\/p>\n
No economic analysis has been done to understand how these significant changes might affect farmers, food companies and Brand NZ, even though we\u2019ve been told the purpose of the Bill is to unlock economic potential.<\/p>\n
And the Bill would make farmers spectators to decisions that will impact us well into the future.<\/p>\n
So wherever you stand, it\u2019s in all farmers\u2019 interests that good decisions are made around GMOs in farming. We need a decision-making framework that works for all of us, whether we\u2019re using GMOs or supplying non-GM markets. That means:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2022 Farmers, growers and food companies are involved in all decisions about field uses of agricultural GMOs: no decisions about our farm businesses without us.<\/p>\n
\u2022 All GMOs \u2013 including gene edited ones \u2013 are regulated, at a minimum so they can be identified to allow for segregation and traceability on farm and in the supply chain<\/p>\n
\u2022 Any decisions around GMOs in the field include assessment of the economic risks and benefits of agricultural GMOs, and if a GMO doesn\u2019t deliver a net economic benefit, it should not get the go-ahead.<\/p>\n
\u2022 We as a country and a sector get to make decisions about GMO use based on our unique conditions \u2013 Wellington should not be able to clear GMOs without us just because it\u2019s been approved in the Iowa corn belt or the Canadian canola fields.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Any costs of GMO use are fairly shouldered \u2013 developers and GMO users should not pass on the costs of segregation or contaminating non-GM production<\/p>\n
Against this checklist, the original Bill scores a zero and farmers are still in the dark about how much, if at all, the Select Committee has listened to us. \u00a0<\/p>\n
And from here, the process only gets worse as far as farmer input goes.\u00a0 The second reading of the Bill \u2013 where changes can be made \u2013\u00a0 is more like Wall Street trading floor: it\u2019s familiar turf for lobbyists and lawyers with the right speed dials, and enormously challenging for farmers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And we expect that once the Select Committee reports back to Parliament on August 22, the government will push it through under urgency. That\u2019s a recipe for patch jobs and last-minute compromises that will be a cash cow for lawyers, not farmers.<\/p>\n
Fast-forward from there to the regulations that will sit under the Act that will deal with the all-important issues like contamination and which the government has said it will push through quickly. These require even less consultation. \u00a0<\/p>\n
From there, skip to decisions about GMOs, where the government is proposing to cut us out and instead listen to Ottawa, Washington or Bejiing\u2019s views on GM crops and animals.<\/p>\n
We do not have confidence that the process from here is on track to fix a Bill that is so heavily weighted to the interests of GMO developers and so uninterested in the people and businesses that will have to make it work.<\/p>\n
We believe that the best course is to \u201csplit the Bill\u201d: that is, to go ahead with changes to reduce unnecessary rules around GM medicines and activities with GMOs in containment but not proceed with regulatory changes to use of GMOs outdoors at this time. \u00a0<\/p>\n
This is not to kick a review of the rules concerning agricultural use of GMOs into the long grass but to make sure that farmers sit around the drafting table and there is time to get it right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The reality is that there is no ag GMO that is ready at the gate for commercialisation and that we know will deliver New Zealand farmers a net benefit in the current market environment, where consumers generally reject GMOs.<\/p>\n
With the added pressure the new tariffs United States President Donald Trump has slapped on our products, we simply cannot afford to put a foot wrong with our customers and consumers.<\/p>\n
\u00a0In its first run at this, the government miscalculated how much farming is interested in this Bill. It should not make the same mistake twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading Time: 3 minutes By Ruth and Mike Williams, Nick Collins. Sheep and beef farmers, writing on behalf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[267,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-316717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114969638498788729","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}