More scientific consensus on safety of GM food than on climate change, MPs told

Tuesday, 25 March 2025

Bananas are a household staple in New Zealand. In the not-too-distant future, they could all be a gene-edited strain.

Australian scientist Richard Dale’s gene edited Cavendish bananas could be the saving of the grocery staple so many New Zealand households rely on.

Panama disease is putting pressure on the banana industry, and repeat fungicidal spraying is needed to keep many banana crops healthy.

But Dale’s banana, created through transplanting a gene from a wild species of banana into a Cavendish, has resulted in a fungus-resistant strain of banana that is completely safe to eat, but does not require dousing in fungicides.

This banana is undergoing field trials in Australia, where 20 years ago the government passed laws to manage the risks of the development and use of genetically modified organisms (GMO).

Dale was in New Zealand last week at Wellington’s Life Sciences Summit, speaking about the journey of his banana.

And he was pressed into work here to provide a practical example of why New Zealand should follow the Australian example by ditching its GM-free stance, and pass the Government’s Gene Technology Bill.

Scion scientist Alec Foster explains gene editing and why New Zealanders should not fear it.

The debate around the bill has been dominated by opponents to the bill, including the organic food industry, who fear GMO contamination will threaten the premiums they can charge for their products.

Of the 15,000 or so submissions on the bill that MPs have had to wade through, the majority are opposed to it.

Celebrity chef Peter Gordon wants New Zealand to retain its GM-free status.

They have included household names like celebrity chef Peter Gordon, who told MPs the message from the scientific community was “trust us”.

But he said: “There simply isn’t a market for GM food here in New Zealand, or abroad.”

He feared New Zealand would revert back to being a low-return commodity producer, if the country went down the GM route.

“I doubt the UK consumer would want to eat a shoulder of fine New Zealand lamb that’s been fed on GMO grasses, when they can have a Welsh lamb from the green, clean valleys,” Gordon said.

But some scientists have warned MPs not to be captured by alarmist narratives when they can look to the US and Australia, where organic and GM producers manage to coexist.

Globally, gene edited crops provided a viable route to increasing food yields to feed a growing population, while reducing the use of chemicals, or clearing more forests.

Scientist Revel Drummond told MPs that New Zealand had to embrace gene science to improve lives and the environment.

MPs heard from scientist Revel Drummond that in Australia, GM cotton allowed growers to use 99% less pesticide.

“We have to be better at growing food, we have to do it more environmentally friendly, and more productively,” he told MPs.

And as for New Zealand being GM-free, scientists said nobody really knew as food labelling laws did not require labelling on products like cheese to identify that they were made from milk from cows which had been fed on GM feed, said scientist and businessman William Rolleston from South Pacific Sera.

Many varieties of fruit and vegetables were created using random ‘mutagenesis’ techniques by exposing plants to chemicals or radiation to see whether beneficial mutations occur.

And, Rolleston said: “There’s more consensus on safety of GM food than there is on climate change within the scientific community.”

But Rolleston, who is chair of the Life Sciences Network and Genomics Aotearoa pro-GM association, said: “There is no evidence that after three decades of use around the world, genetic modification has reduced the ‘Clean and Green’ image of any country.”

Scientists liken gene editing, which involves making small changes to the genes of an organism to see what the outcome will be, to the chemical or radiation-induced mutagenesis process by which many modern types of fruit and vegetables were created.

Scientist Alec Foster from Crown forestry research agency Scion, says: “If we wish to be clean and green, we need to be embracing such technologies.”

“Many countries no longer consider gene editing as genetic modification, however the organics industry do,” Rolleston told MPs.

“Since it is not always possible to tell if an organism has been gene edited, it is likely that gene edited organisms will enter New Zealand even if we tried to stop them or have them registered at the border,” he said.

Scientist Alec Foster from Crown forestry research agency Scion likened trying to develop beneficial GMOs in New Zealand to being in a prison.

Scion had developed a form of pine tree that captured twice the carbon of an ordinary pine, Foster told MPs, but was unable to field test it in New Zealand to test yield and the properties of its wood.

He told MPs that a law change was essential if New Zealand was to have a biotechnology sector to contribute to health, economy and environment.

Foster looked with envy at Australia.

“They are able to decarbonise, while they grow their economy,” he said.

“There are products today that are having a huge impacts globally. In New Zealand, if we wish to be clean and green, we need to be embracing such technologies,” he said.

Rolleston told MPs about GM rye grass being developed that would need less water, and produce more metabolisable energy than the rye grasses planted today on farms throughout the country.

In an exchange with Green MP Steve Abel, who is opposed to the bill, he said: “Genetic modification is like fire. Fire keeps us warm. It helps us cook our food. But it can also burn our houses down. It doesn’t mean we ban it. We use it responsibly.”