Delicious organic apples in green and red gift boxes arrived at Parliament buildings today. A free lunch for MPs with a strong message from GE Free NZ Hawke’s Bay branch.

Spokesperson Kay Keates says that that 10% of pipfruit growers in Hawke’s Bay are now producing crops organically and over-all the organic industry here in Hawke’s Bay is worth 10 million dollars and still in its infancy. Growers cannot keep up with the demand she says, both locally and globally.

However , it is not just organic growers who need reassuring from the government . Many conventional growers hold fears that their crop could be contaminated should genetic engineered material be released into the environment. Mrs Keates says that consumer and grower resistance and an increasing awareness of health and safety mean that genetic engineering should not be introduced into New Zealand.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>