Dirty Food Technologies

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Time for Government to Pull Up NZ’s Slide into Dirty Food Technologies.

The Soil & Health Association wants 2007 to be the year that New Zealand confirms its Clean Green image and snaps the crown agencies out of the slide into the unsustainable and unwanted activities of GE and animal cloning.

Soil & Health also wants Fonterra, Meat New Zealand and other key commercial agencies and productive sectors to confirm that they will not be part of the slide to food production using cloning or genetic engineering.

Although against international consumer trends, government agency AgResearch has supported the US Food and Drug Administration’s direction of bringing food from cloned animals into the food chain.

Crop & Food another government institution continues to push ahead with genetically engineered food plant trials. Forest Research continues with its GE tree trials. Landcare Research is researching GE biological pest controls.

“With key politicians mooting a new era of sustainability and for ‘sustainability to be central to New Zealand’s unique national identity’, Clean and Green and 100% Pure need to be reinforced as New Zealand images, not attacked by unproven, high risk and unwanted technologies,” said Soil & Health spokesperson Steffan Browning.

Of particular recent concern was AgResearch’s cloning call, according to Soil & Health. AgResearch is way out of step with consumer preferences, and AgResearch support for the US FDA’s position that includes a no labelling intent for foods derived from cloned animals, is both arrogant and a call for commercial disaster.

GE Free and Clone Free must be standard for New Zealand in the new era of sustainability and huge international market growth for organics.

New Zealand benefits from its clean and green reputation, and foods need to be labelled to ensure consumers both in NZ and overseas can choose GE and clone free.

Consumers won’t want food that has animal welfare implications either, according to Mr Browning, noting that cloning has caused significant suffering in animals already.

Any involvement by Fonterra in cloning is also a step away from a sustainable future for its farmer owners. Real value-added products will have genuine ECO sustainability ticks or organic certification, not risky new food concoctions.

Organic certification, which is the vanguard of consumer guarantees for sustainable production, does not allow either GE or cloning in either production or processing.

Government expressing a target of an Organic 2020 to its funding and research agencies would be far more productive for New Zealand’s reputation, market appeal, and food and environmental safety.

NZ doesn’t need dirty sweet corn

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Following the latest GE seed border incursion, the Soil and Health Association of New Zealand is once again calling for a stop to imports of sweet corn and maize seed, until absolute certainty of nil GE contamination is achieved.

‘Clean green New Zealand farmers deserve better protection by Biosecurity NZ, and those affected by dirty seed need fast assurance of fair compensation, just as the wider community needs assurance that the contaminated seed and young plants will be destroyed,’ said Soil & Health spokesperson Steffan Browning,

‘It is increasingly frustrating and disturbing having repeated border incursions of dirty seed. If some in MAF Biosecurity are letting their team and the rest of New Zealand down, and zero tolerance cannot be assured, then MAF must encourage further development of New Zealand’s own clean seed industry’.

‘Self sufficiency in clean seed can protect New Zealand’s clean green reputation as a GE Free producer’.

Prime Minister Helen Clark’s call for New Zealand to be the world’s first truly sustainable nation included the statement: “I want sustainability to be central to New Zealand’s unique national identity….”

‘Our unique national identity includes Nuclear Free and GE Free for most kiwis, and these repeated incursions tarnish that identity’, said Mr Browning.

‘Contrary to Dr William Rolleston of Life Sciences Network, who doesn’t mind a little contamination, the large majority of New Zealanders have consistently indicated they don’t want GE contaminated food or have GE crops grown.’

‘Organic growers and consumers who have sights on an Organic 2020 don’t need Life Sciences contaminated thinking. We want food and crops that our consumers and markets appreciate, not dirty low value commodities’.
Soil & Health is also concerned that possible dilution of contaminated parent lines of seed may be allowing intentional contamination into New Zealand.

Such concerns, according to Mr Browning, further fuel the need to develop New Zealand’s seed industry as part of a Clean Green, GE Free, Nuclear Free national identity.

Organic Farming Offsets Food Miles

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Organic farming offers solutions to the current food miles debate. Not only that, but it leads the way in low energy farming, and will help New Zealand reach its carbon neutral targets, according to the Soil & Health Association.

“Consumers are rightly becoming concerned about ‘food miles’, because the fossil fuel used in transporting food contributes to climate change through CO2 emissions,” says Soil and Health spokesperson, Steffan Browning. “However, New Zealand and overseas reports all show that organic production uses much less energy than conventional farming.”

Other bonuses are that organic production is the preferred consumer choice, it increases carbon sequestration and has much lower externalised environmental costs.

The Lincoln University report, Food Miles – Comparative Energy/Emissions Performance of New Zealand’s Agriculture Industry, by Saunders, Barber and Taylor, argues that with food miles, it is not just the distance that should be assessed but the total energy used, from production to plate, including transport.

The report, released in July, shows that New Zealand products use less energy, and have lower emissions per tonne of product delivered to the UK, than UK products do. It quotes a report by Defra (UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs): “…it can be more sustainable to import organic food into the UK than to grow non-organic food in the UK.”

The Lincoln report quotes Swedish research over 23 dairy farms, “…. these tests showed that the total energy use of organic dairy farms per unit of production was significantly less than each of the two conventional types of farms, …. A similar picture emerged for CO2 emissions.”

Soil & Health noted from the Lincoln report, that environmental costs of current farming systems when added to consumer prices are about 4 times that of the organic equivalent cost.

The Lincoln report also quoted a list of strategies for the consumer to avoid food miles when making purchases, provided by the UK Women’s Environmental Network. Their top five most ethical choices are (in order):

1. Organic, local and seasonal
2. Local
3. Fairtrade and organic
4. Organic
5. Fairtrade

The Soil & Health Association of NZ shares these principles as part of its Organic 2020 vision, but can see a place for sustainably produced organic goods from New Zealand being efficiently shipped to complement shortfalls in local British product.

While the Lincoln study did not consider carbon sequestration, American studies show that organic methods are far more effective than conventional methods at taking CO2 from the atmosphere and fixing it as beneficial organic matter in the soil. The 23-year Rodale Institute study calculated that if 10,000 mid sized U.S. farms converted to organic production, it would be equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road, or not driving 14.62 billion miles.

Former British Environment Minister Michael Meacher told a 2004 Soil Association conference in Edinburgh, that the government must boost organics to help Britain meet its Kyoto targets. He also highlighted the Rodale Institute research, which also found that soluble nitrogen fertilisers in conventional farming destroyed soil biota that trap greenhouse gases.

The Soil & Health Association of NZ sees continued government support for the organic sector as an important solution to food miles arguments, and to the Prime Minister’s aim of a truly sustainable New Zealand.