1. Take action to support New Zealand's GM-free status
2. Dirty tricks campaign to get genetic engineering into New Zealand

NOTE: New Zealand is under pressure to drop its GM-free status so that NZ can have a free trade deal with the US. A dodgy report is being used as justification to introduce GM into NZ (item 2).

This will affect people all over the world, as many countries import meat, dairy products and other foods from NZ.

Please email one or more of the list of people below to ask for NZ to retain its GM-free status (item 1). Sample email is below -- please personalize with your own points. For example, if you buy New Zealand lamb or butter, say so.
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1. Take action to support New Zealand's GM-free status

[your address]

Dear

I am highly concerned as a regular consumer of New Zealand produce. I buy it because it tastes great and I know it is safe and of high quality. I can also be guaranteed that it is GM Free. I would be very concerned if New Zealand dropped its GM Free status and it would affect my decision to buy NZ produce, especially milk and meat.

Yours sincerely,

The Dompost This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Press  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
NZ Herald This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hon John Key - Prime Minister National Party This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hon Wayne Mapp minister for the environment This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hon Tim Groser Minister for Trade This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hon David Carter Minister of Agriculture and Bio Security
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Hon Phil Goff -Leader of the Opposition  Labour Party
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Hon Russel Norman Co -Leader of the Green Party
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Hon Metiria Turei Co -Leader of the Green Party
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Hon Pita Sharples Co-leader of the Maori Partry This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hon Tariana Turia Co Leader of Maori Party This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Radio New Zealand This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Gary Romano Fonterra Manager of Trade This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Keith Cooper Executive Director of the Meat Industry
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Craig Cooper Director of the Meat Industry Association
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GE Free and Nuclear values Not "Mythical" - (GE-FREE NZ press release)

The pressure to get rid of New Zealand's GE Free status is now as high as the pressure brought to bare on NZ when David Lange declared New Zealand a Nuclear Free nation.

There is no role for GE rye grass in New Zealand, and existing GE-free solutions are available now. The Otago report on "Clean Green" in New Zealand is flawed [1].

The release of the Report appears to be part of the government programme promoting a  US/ New Zealand Free Trade deal where the benefits of protecting our GE Free status is to be traded off, along with other central pillars for New Zealand's future wellbeing.

The US has for a long time opposed any legislation that they think will be detrimental to the Free Trade partnership and entry of US goods [2]. The risk to New Zealand is the very bio-security and values that make us special.

"The Government is moving on an agenda of privatization of the total food supply by outside companies controlling patents. But it is forgetting its people and the consumers who buy NZ products," said Claire Bleakley, President of GE FREE NZ.

"We have excellent high producing pastures that are proven safe for animals and are consumer acceptable. These pasture feeds are generating massive economic benefits for all of New Zealand, as Fonterra and Beef and Lamb exports show," said Claire Bleakley.

New Zealand has already completed robust research into fodder crops that reduce methane which FORST should continue to fund to get to the farm gate. These crops are already in New Zealand and include legumes and grasses such as trefoil, sulla clovers, lucerne and an assortment of grasses. Research has shown that they not only boost milk production but reduce methane emissions.[3][4]

"It is not from Organic Farmers that the horror stories of GE have come, but from conventional farmers and scientists' observations and studies relating to the adverse effects of the impacts GE on their farming operations and these are not a 'myth'" said Mrs. Bleakley.

"It is sad that the Government continues to put money into the failed but costly Genetic Engineering research instead of the alternatives that have real benefit to farmers and consumers," said Claire Bleakley.

The GE fodder crop offers no credible benefit to New Zealand: any hint of GE-fed animals has the potential to collapse the export market to Europe and Japan.

The argument for promoting GE feed does not stand up to scrutiny. Grass fed animals already have more Omega fatty acids and Vitamin E than grain fed animals. This is because omega-3 (linoleic and linolenic acid) fatty acids and Vitamin E are formed in the green leaves (specifically the chloroplasts) of plants. Sixty percent of the fat content of grass is a type of omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic or LNA which is lost when animals are fed on grain. Comparisons of Vitamin E levels in meat from feedlot cattle given high doses of synthetic Vitamin E (1,000 IU per day) with other cattle raised on fresh pasture with no added supplements, found that vitamin E in grass fed cattle was almost twice as high as the meat from the feedlot cattle given the supplements [5].

Perennial rye, cocksfoot and tall fescue grasses are already identified as naturally containing high levels sugars and both saturated and unsaturated lipids fats [6]. Leys containing plantain and chicory with the mixed grasses and legumes can provide a balanced and healthy pasture for stock without the risks of GE crops.

References:

[1] GM myth should be laid to rest: researcher Radio NZ News, 3/4/2011,
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/71959/gm-myth-should-be-laid-to-rest-researcher

[2]Sabotage and subterfuge: public relations, democracy and genetic engineering in New Zealand (p. 331)

[3] Turner S-A, Waghorn GC, Woodward SL, Thomson NA Condensed tannins in birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) affect the detailed composition of milk from dairy cows. Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 65, pp 283-289, Jan 2005

Woodward SL, Waghorn GC, Laboyrie PG Condensed tannins in birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) reduce methane emissions from dairy cows, Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 64, pp 160-164, Jan 2004

Wittenberg K.M. Enteric methane emissions and mitigation opportunities for Canadian cattle production systems. Department of Animal Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2

'Energy lost as enteric methane emissions were 7.1 % of GEI for alfalfa-grass vs. 9.5 % of GEI for grass-only pastures. An 11 % increase for calf growth rates on the legume-grass pasture would serve as further incentive to consider legume incorporation as a mitigation strategy" (p6)

Ominski K and Wittenberg K.M (2004) Strategies For Reducing Enteric Methane Emissions In Forage-Based Beef Production Systems, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta Canadian Society of Agronomy, Animal Science and Soil Science.

[4] Mountfort M., (2003) Methane mitigation Dairy Exporter; p56.

[5 Jo Johnson, The Health Benefits of Grass Farming "Why Grass-fed is Best!" http://www.americangrassfedbeef.com/grass-fed-natural-beef.asp

[6 Miri P s., Bittman s., Hunt D., Entz T and Yip B., 2006 Lipid content and fatty acid composition of grasses sampled on different dates through the early part of the growing season Can. J. Anim. Sci. 86: 279-290.


Claire Bleakley 027 348 6731 / 06-3089842
Jon Carapiet 021 050 7681
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2 Dirty tricks campaign to get genetic engineering into New Zealand
SOIL and HEALTH Assn of NZ
Press Release
April 3, 2011
http://bit.ly/hrlgAn

A dirty tricks campaign is under way to get public and government acceptance of genetically engineered (GE) crops into New Zealand farming systems, according to the Soil & Health Association of New Zealand.

The release on Friday by Otago University's Associate Professor John Knight, of an Agmardt funded report on the attitude of tourists to scenarios of nuclear power and GE crops was incomplete and constructed to get the result that Agmardt and United States foreign policy wanted, says Soil & Health. (1)

The report failed to disclose the results of significant questions around the 100% Pure New Zealand brand, or what trust in New Zealand would be, should the Government allow nuclear power, allow factory farming, close GE field trials, demand GE labelling and for biotech companies to be liable for GE damage. The report was a mix of selected data and opinion by the author, who is closely linked to the biotech industry.

"Agmardt and Pastoral Genomics have only just hosted the internationally discredited, University of California Professor, Pamela Ronald, for a public relations tour of New Zealand. Ronald intentionally misrepresented organic systems and GE as potentially coexisting," said Soil & Health-Organic NZ spokesperson Steffan Browning. (2)

"Both Knight's report and Ronald's presentations and responses to media are extremely misleading and part of a pro-GE strategy outlined in the recommendations by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) international GE policy specialist Terri Dunahay following her time in New Zealand government agencies last year." (3)

"Wikileaks has shown the United States embassy pressure on the New Zealand government to embrace GE, and now Fonterra and PGG Wrightson's associates, Agmardt and Pastoral Genomics, are ramping up the public relations communications in New Zealand in an effort to tick Dunahay's recommendation boxes and get GE rye grass and clover into New Zealand's pastures." (4,5,6)

"Monsanto's GE crops, and Scion and ArboGen's GE pines, would quickly follow any introduction of GE pastures," said Mr Browning.

"Unfortunately the pro-GE PR is neither accurate nor balanced and fails to include the benefits of remaining both nuclear free and GE free, or the costs to New Zealand's current primary production being able to declare its produce as free from GE contamination."

"Associate Professor Knight needs to make available the latest raw research data for independent analysis."

"Knight's Agmardt funded report fails to address the opportunities to tourism by remaining GE free. Even accepting Knight's biased research, the approximately 9 % of tourists, who said that they would stop visiting New Zealand if GE was introduced, are very valuable to a tourist industry currently suffering from decline in tourist numbers."

"Knight failed to consider the effects of the 9% drop in tourism, and suggested that " Introduction of drought-tolerant GM pasture into New Zealand would seem highly unlikely to have a damaging impact on New Zealand's ‘clean green' image for either exports of food products or for tourism."

"A well facilitated public debate between GE protagonists, and Soil & Health-Organic NZ and GE Free NZ representatives is urgently needed."

Soil & Health has a vision of an Organic 2020 where Aotearoa New Zealand remains Nuclear Free, GE Free, Factory Farm Free, and is following a path towards organic genuinely sustainable production and conservation.

(1) http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago017378.html Please contact Steffan Browning for a copy of the full report. The full report is also available on request from Otago University, although the raw data does not appear to be available.

(2) http://www.organicnz.org/soil-and-health-press/mission-misrepresents-reality/

(3) http://www.fulbright.org.nz/voices/axford/2010_dunahay.html

(4) http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1012/S00171/wikileak-das-reed-engages-on-tpp-un-env-fiji-apec.htm

(5) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops

(6) http://www.organicnz.org/soil-and-health-press/pure-newzealand/