GE Free
New Zealand in Food & Environment, 04th October
2004 GE Free NZ in food and environment welcomes and applauds the innovative techniques developed by Pacific Seed to protect New Zealand farmers from accidental GEcontamination in seeds. The development
of pre-testing protocols is a major advance in biosecurity and protection
of New Zealand's GE_free producstion capacity as it helps ensure
that the level of contamination in at-risk crops like maize, Pacific Seeds practice will preserve New Zealand's producstion of uncontaminated food for our local an international markets and is a challenge to inadequate policies promoted by MAF that would have put our exports at risk by accepting contamination as inevitable.. "It is now the responsibilty of MAF to maintain 'zero tolerance' through testing of imported seeds and to hold companies liable if they that fail to adopt this innovation", says Jon Carapiet spokesman for GE Free NZ in food and envionment. "It is pleasing to see that the precautionary principle is being taken seriously by our government," says Claire Bleakley , president of GE Free (NZ) in food and environment "This means
that New Zealand's export markets can be assured and our Clean Green
image preserved for another year. With this new protocol now developed
, anything less than full compliance will clearly constitute
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