National calls to end ban on gene edited crops

The National Party is campaigning to reverse the ban on gene editing and genetic modification.

This ban stops farms from producing food or grasses from crops that have been gene edited. It has been in place for more than two decades, and was the subjected of heated debate when the legislation was last revisited in 2003.

The ban means New Zealand can market itself as “GMO free”, although some local researchers do work on gene editing projects.

National Party science and innovation spokesperson Judith Collins said the ban was costing New Zealand and making it harder to reach climate change goals.

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“[Gene technology] has been used in New Zealand laboratories since the 1970s, but restrictive rules, drafted in the 1990s, make research outside the lab all but impossible. This means our scientists must head overseas to conduct further research,” she said.

The party released policy on Sunday, saying it would reverse the ban and introduce a new biotech regulator, if elected in October.

The policy document said the country had lost potentially billions from the GE ban.

It also criticised the current framework, which was overseen by the Enviromental Protection Authority (EPA), saying it was outdated and overly cauticious.

It said the EPA had approved fewer than 10 GE or geneticaly modified products to be used in New Zealand otuside a lab.

“New Zealand has already created genetically modified grasses in labs which would significantly reduce our agricultural emissions, but our restrictive, outdated rules currently mean no GE crops can be grown in New Zealand,” Collins said.

National leader Christopher Luxon told TVNZ’s Q&A he didn’t see any major risks in allowing GE crops to be grown in Aotearoa.

“The biggest risk is not adopting new technology,” he said.

“New Zealand is well behind other countries. We need to drag ourselves into the 21st century. This can be done safely.”

He said any cost to New Zealand’s agricultural brand, which could no longer be “GMO free”, would be offset by increases in efficency.

The National Party policy said a dedicated biotech regulator would assess any safety risks, and be responsible for ensuring those risks were managed. It also clarified that the party was not campaigning to authorise human embryonic GE.