"Our" business?
OPINION: One particular bone the Hound has been gnawing on for years now is how the chattering classes want it both ways when it comes to the success of NZ's dairy industry.
OPINION: At the September Fonterra results meeting in Waihi, I raised concerns about the viability and risks of releasing GE in New Zealand.
I asked what marketing case studies had been done to confim that our customers will accept GE foods from New Zealand and still pay the premium we enjoy from our non-GE food exports. I asked Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell if he'd seen a cost benefit analysis in favour of Genetically Modified Organisms ('GMOs'). He said he had not.
So why give away our competitive advantage?
New Zealand's current GE regulations say any GE organism must be proven commercially viable, low risk and OK with New Zealanders to use in our agriculture and environment. Our regulations are like, not tougher than, everyone else's.
The proposed changes to GE regulations would allow gene-edited organisms into our agriculture with no testing of market acceptance and contamination risk. Why would we do that?
Why would government rush a regulation change through Parliament taking away control measures that have served New Zealand so well?
The science lobbyists also don't want labels on our exported food to tell our customers it's genetically modified. Yet many overseas retailers demand GE foods be labelled 'Genetically Modified'.
Since New Zealand is entirely neighbour-free, what country is better placed than us to keep our food GE-free and the demand that goes with it?
Why would we trade away this oceanic competitive advantage? Especially without doing proper commercial due diligence on the impact on our brand and premums?
Farm viability at risk
Getting our foods to faraway markets is expensive. To offset those high packaging, freight and distribution costs, we have to charge a premium.
But what if GE costs us a big part of our reputation and strips us of that premium? Will we still be able to afford to export? Will farmers, market gardeners and orchardists be able to survive?
What work has been done to confirm consumers will still pay the New Zealand premium when the New Zealand product is no longer GE-free?
Not enough
Releasing GE into our environment risks contaminating food products grown in New Zealand. Any GE scientist that tells you otherwise is misleading. You'll find that out if you ask them for a personal guarantee!
Adding to the risks is the fact that we can't clean up a GE mess. Once mutated genes are out, they're in the environment forever.
From that point on, 100% Pure New Zealand will be history. Our food integrity status that's long sustained us will be gone for good.
NZ doesn't need GE to innovate
As agricultural innovators, we've been world leaders for over a hundred years. We've got the sophisticated biology tools to stay ahead without scaring our customers by manipulating genes.
Potato plant breeders are using the same molecular biology assessment techniques as GE. They can commercialise beneficial traits in potato varieties within 18 months without gene editing. That's the sort of use we need to be putting innovation to.
GM Grasses - for good reasons we haven't gone there. Genetically modified ryegrasses have been in the New Zealand research pipeline for decades. GM grasses haven’t been allowed field trials here. Why not?
Not because the laws are too strict. But because Fonterra and others pulled the plug on proposed trials in 2009. Why? Because of their concerns about contamination risk and brand reputation damage.
Since then, nothing has changed. No grass traits have been developed to make those GE ryegrasses less of a contamination risk. Nor except for greater demand for GE-free and Organic Foods has the market changed. Yet at the rate things are going GE ryegrasses could be released into our environment in 2025. Why the rush to remove safeguards now?
If it doesn’t happen in nature, it’s not natural.
Swapping animal, plant and microbe genes and removing gene sequences in a lab (CRISPR), does not happen in nature.
And GE is not just a simple, single swap or snip.
Sophisticated genemapping tools are showing multiple unintended changes in CRISPR gene structure.
And many are linked to the risk of cancer.
This is not a natural technique. New Zealand geneticist Prof Jack Heinemann explains in a recent podcast interview that it’s not possible (using the latest GE science and technology) to stop or claim that GMOs don’t contaminate other plants and organisms with which they come into contact.
This fact may be lost on government and some industry players. It could put at grave risk our food industries’ hardwon reputation for food integrity.
Farmers stand together
The pressure for law change has not come from food consumers or customers.
No farmer should be okay about GMOs being released in New Zealand if:
Our cooperative needs to step up again to safeguard our premium and economic viability.
This is our livelihood on the line. Farmers need to work together. Call your regional cooperative reps, tell them what you think.
Paul Bosher - born in Te Kuiti and raised on his parents’ sheep and beef farm on the outskirts of Auckland – now heads his family’s diversified investment fund. In March 2021 the fund acquired a dairy and beef farm in Taupo milking some 1200 cows.
Phoebe Scherer, a technical manager from the Bay of Plenty, has won the 2025 Young Grower of the Year national title.
The Fencing Contractors Association of New Zealand (FCANZ) celebrated the best of the best at the 2025 Fencing Industry Awards, providing the opportunity to honour both rising talent and industry stalwarts.
Award-winning boutique cheese company, Cranky Goat Ltd has gone into voluntary liquidation.
As an independent review of the National Pest Management Plan for TB finds the goal of complete eradication by 2055 is still valide, feedback is being sought on how to finish the job.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand has launched an AI-powered digital assistant to help farmers using the B+LNZ Knowledge Hub to create tailored answers and resources for their farming businesses.
A tiny organism from the arid mountains of mainland Greece is facilitating a new way of growing healthier animals on farms across New Zealand.
OPINION: For years, the ironically named Dr Mike Joy has used his position at Victoria University to wage an activist-style…
OPINION: A mate of yours truly has had an absolute gutsful of the activist group SAFE.