New reports back extended moratorium

New reports back extended moratorium: GM problems "the tip of the iceberg"

New Zealand's government and regulatory authorities should listen to new research-findings published in the UK and Australia supporting a moratorium on GM commercial release.

In the UK a new report for the government considered 5 different approaches to introduction of GE agriculture highlighting the potential benefits of a GE-Free policy and the broadscale risks of pushing on with commercial crops against the public will and counter to the market demand for GE-Free Produce.

A new report has also found that Western Australia should maintain its moratorium on genetically modified crops until 2006, and investigate the possibility of remaining GM-free into the future.

The state government's Environment and Public Affairs Committee spent the last year investigating the consequences of growing GM crops, talking to farmers, surveying major markets in the Middle East and Asia and travelling to Canada and the US for a first hand look at GM technology.

Committee chair Dr Christine Sharp, from the Greens, says it became clear that WA is not ready to go down the GM road.

"There's been no decisions on what are adequate buffers between GM and non GM crops and that's just really the tip of the iceberg of a whole lot of practical and marketing issues which are simply not yet clear."
(Source: ABC Online 15 July 2003)

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