N Zealand Covered Up Illegal Release of GM Seed

by Bob Burton

The scandal is likely to severely dent the prospects of New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark in an election scheduled for July 27, especially in a campaign where the controversy over GM crops has become a major issue.

In a book called "Seeds of Distrust," New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager revealed that the government discovered in November 2000 that a 5.6 ton consignment of sweet corn seeds imported by Novartis from the United States was contaminated with GM seeds. (In mid-November 2000, Novartis merged with AstraZeneca to become Sygenta.)

Based on leaked government documents -- including Cabinet papers -- Hager's book says that when government ministers were first made aware of the problem, approximately half the contaminated seeds had been planted and the remainder were in storage.

Under New Zealand's Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, any release of GM modified organisms are required to be approved by the Environmental Risk Management Authority.

The option initially favored by Clark in mid-November was the removal of the plants and the non-use of the remaining seed.

An initial hasty submission to Cabinet -- which was approved in early December 2000 -- sought to give special powers to government officials under the provisions of the Biosecurity Act to destroy the already growing plants.

However, before the plants could be destroyed, a major lobbying campaign led by the public relations lobbyist for Novartis persuaded the government to backtrack on its earlier plan.

At a meeting in late November, Novartis and other affected companies argued that instead of the destruction of the crops, a better alternative was the adoption of a policy that would allow a threshold level of GM contamination to be deemed to have been accepted.

A Ministry for Environment briefing proposed relaxing New Zealand's standards, claiming that "it may not be in the interests of major (seed) producing countries to go to extra trouble and expense to meet our entry requirements."

Government officials also feared that "there may be a backlash where New Zealand was no longer perceived as a convenient cost-effective place for other countries to bulk up seeds."

Hager argues that making it easy for seed companies became a central consideration. "What became apparent is there was a trade regime that suited the American-based multinational and that was that countries not restrict access to GM-contaminated seeds," Hager told IPS.

Instead of destroying the crops, the government agreed that if contamination levels were below 0.5 percent, the crops and seed would be deemed to have complied with the provisions of the legislation. The basis of the policy change was that the test results on the batch of contaminated seeds were "inconclusive," a claim contradicted by the leaked documents.

Announcing the policy change in the week before Christmas 2000, Environment Minister Marian Hobbs claimed that instead of relaxing the standards, the government was tightening them.

"New measures are being developed by the government to guard against the inadvertent introduction of genetically modified seed," Hobbs' statement claimed.

Not only were the crops allowed to continue to be grown and be harvested for use in products for the domestic and export markets, the remainder of the seed which had not been planted was also approved for use.

The explosive revelations could not have come at a worse time for the incumbent Labor Party government, with its electoral standing sliding in the lead up to this month's election.

Clark called the election in mid-June in the hope that the government would be able to win an outright majority of seats in the 120-member Parliament and not have to negotiate with the Green Party for the passage of its legislation.

With the controversy over GM crops raging, support for the Green Party has surged from the just over 5 percent it garnered at the 1999 election to over 10 percent. Under New Zealand's proportional representation system, the Greens look set to increase their representation from their current seven seats.

In an extraordinary decision, Clark has been refusing to face the media in the current row.

After six hours of silence from the government, Hobbs finally issued a media statement saying "for the government there are no acceptable levels of GM contamination."

Hobbs disputes the claims of any GM contamination, despite the evidence contained in the government's own internal documents reproduced as appendices to Hager's book. "There was no evidence of GM contamination in the corn seed," she claimed.

Hager believes that what happened in New Zealand is a case study with global implications. "It is an example of a government pushing ahead with a position that benefits a small but politically influential industry group against massive public opposition to GM," he said.

"Central to the success of the industry persuading the government to protect the commercial interests from public opposition was secrecy," Hager said.