Source: The Press, 5 November 2003 via Life Sciences Network

The New Zealand Institute of Crop and Food Research has unveiled the mystery collaborator on its genetically engineered (GE) onions project.

California-based Seminis, which describes itself as the world's largest developer, grower and marketer of fruit and vegetable seeds, signed a deal with Crop and Food's Lincoln researchers yesterday.

In addition to giving the Government-funded scientists an undisclosed sum of money, it has provided access to the herbicide-resistant gene used by Crop and Food.

A row over the identity of the US backer erupted on Monday at the opening of a three-day hearing by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) on a bid by Crop and Food to field test GE onions.

Crop and Food's market development general manager, Peter Barrowclough, said the research institute had hundreds of commercial relationships and "most have confidentiality clauses".

Following speculation on its identity, Seminis agreed to waive this clause. The firm is doing parallel trials on GE onions in the US.

Erma's three-day hearing continued in Christchurch to consider Crop and Food's proposal to trial GE onions over 10 years at a secret location in Lincoln.

Researcher Dr Colin Eady has asked for consent to plant up to 13 plots, each less than 15 square metres.

Crop and Food has done 33 field trials of GE plants; the latest on GE potatoes was only pulled up this year. But Dr Eady's is the first new application for three years and attracted a record 1900 submissions.

Yesterday, Federated Farmers and the Vegetable and Potato Growers Federation backed the research which is aimed at cutting the use of herbicides by up to 70 per cent.

California-based genetics professor David Williams told Erma that Dr Eady's onion used outdated technology and urged him to do more work in the lab before going to field trials.

Speaking by phone from California, Prof Williams said not enough was known about inadvertent genetic changes which could be made when the herbicide-resistant gene was added.

"You don't know what you're doing when you throw this gene into the genome," he said.

Many other submitters raised concerns about the effects of GE crops on soil bacteria.

AgResearch soil microbiologist Dr Maureen O'Callaghan said studies had found only small and/or short-term changes in soil bacteria caused by GE crops and these were insignificant compared with changes caused by different cultivars.

"Very little" was known about the impact of herbicides and pesticides on soil bacteria because the research was "not sexy".

Charismatic organics advocate Bob Crowder, of the Soil and Health Association, told the panel he had been "brought out of mothballs" to make a submission.

Mr Crowder, who founded Lincoln University's organic biological husbandry unit, said few were "stirred to radicalism" over the use of agricultural chemicals, but most New Zealanders were against GE and it was "asking for trouble" to introduce it.

"We could turn New Zealand's isolation, so long a liability, into an asset," he said.

"People know about us because we are nuclear-free, we would be even better known if we came out as GE free."

Meanwhile, the parlous financial state of the nation's best known anti-GE group means it will not be making an oral submission over the Lincoln proposal.

Auckland-based Mothers Against Genetic Engineering Inc (Madge) was invited to appear, but says it cannot afford the plane fares.

It is still trying to pay off a $24,000 debt to AgResearch after being ordered in September to pay its court costs following a failed bid to halt its research on GE cows.

"It means we have no money at all and can't afford to send anybody to any of these things," Madge spokeswoman Rebecca Wright said.