Medicinal fungi at Ora’s Farm
Lion’s Mane, Turkey Tail, Piopinno, Enoki, Shiitake. Intriguing names for delicious mushrooms that science is revealing are beneficial to our health. Crispin Calidicott talks to two growers who are excited about their therapeutic potential.
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Crispin Caldicott is a journalist, writer, editor, tour guide and tram driver. He juggles these multiple roles in life with a small property on the Kaipara Harbour, planted with olive trees to which he plays Mozart and Beethoven.
The Therapeutic Products Bill: A step forward for natural health products?
Natural health products are included in the Therapeutic Products Bill which was presented to Parliament at the end of last year. Dr Sandra Clair looks at the reasoning behind it and says that, if executed well, this could be a step in the right direction for pluralistic medicine in New Zealand.
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The Therapeutic Products Bill intends to establish a new regulatory regime for therapeutic products, including plant-based medicines and dietary supplements (Natural Health Products). Submissions closed 15 February 2023. The Health Committee is due to report back to the House of Representatives on 14 June 2023.
Health is the biggest asset we have, an asset that many people wish to actively support. Until now, this has been rather difficult to do using herbal medicines or dietary supplements due to outdated regulatory restrictions that prohibit the description of their therapeutic purpose.
Take the example of cough medicines. You have a debilitating chronic cough, you go into a store and look for a natural product to help you to get rid of this cough. However, no natural product describes this complaint. At best you can only find products labelled with vague descriptions such as ‘relax and soothe a tight chest’.
In contrast, if you were in Australia, Canada, or countries in the European Union (EU), you could select a product that clearly references your condition: ‘Traditionally used in Western herbal medicine to relieve both dry and mild chesty coughs’. If you were in Switzerland, the basic public health insurance would even pay for a natural cough medicine, as such remedies are listed as effective and safe medicines.
History
Traditional plant medicines (TPMs) are therapeutic substances derived from plants that grow naturally in our environment and are used according to long-established medical customs. Over centuries they have been the mainstream medicines on all levels of care, grounded in an impressive body of empirical evidence. For example, seventy-five percent of 119 widely used modern drugs are either compounded directly from medicinal plants or synthesised based on plant structures, and they have the same or similar therapeutic purpose as they originally had in traditional medicine.
Fit for the future?
The Therapeutic Products Bill replaces the Medicines Act 1981 and Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. More than 10 years in the making, it is intended to be a flexible regulatory framework for how therapeutic products are manufactured, prescribed, imported, advertised, supplied and exported, and make the regulation of clinical trials more robust.
Health Minister Andrew Little said it will enable New Zealand to take advantage of advances in medicine, such as cell and tissue therapies, emerging gene therapies, and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning software.
“Having risk-proportionate approval systems will improve access to necessary and life-saving medicines, such as vaccines in a pandemic.”
Fit for the future?
The Therapeutic Products Bill replaces the Medicines Act 1981 and Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. More than 10 years in the making, it is intended to be a flexible regulatory framework for how therapeutic products are manufactured, prescribed, imported, advertised, supplied and exported, and make the regulation of clinical trials more robust.
Health Minister Andrew Little said it will enable New Zealand to take advantage of advances in medicine, such as cell and tissue therapies, emerging gene therapies, and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning software.
“Having risk-proportionate approval systems will improve access to necessary and life-saving medicines, such as vaccines in a pandemic.”
Popularity
Legislation and consumer trends have clearly forked in New Zealand over many decades. The upsurge in organic food consumption is directly linked to an increasing awareness that our bodies function best when they are well nourished and maintained whilst minimally exposed to foreign and toxic chemicals. The same principles apply when it comes to healthcare, where natural medicines are successfully applied as a first line of defense in common and non-life-threatening illnesses.
The World Health Organisation estimates that about 80% of people around the world use traditional therapeutics to care for their health. Notably, the prevalence of their use is also high in countries where access to pharmaceutical medicine is subsidised, chiefly because they are used to prevent health issues from arising in the first place and are seen as safer than drugs to deal with self-limiting or chronic health complaints.
In New Zealand, traditional systems of medicine are used to address primary healthcare needs, as is broadly consistent with the majority of countries around the world. Studies estimate that about 50% of adults and 70% of children use therapies and preparations from sources outside pharmaceutical healthcare, with plant medicines being the most prevalent non-pharmaceutical form of self-medication.
Legislative background
Despite their prevalent use, the current New Zealand legislation does not recognise traditional plant medicines as therapeutic products and does not acknowledge their positive contribution to care.
There have been several attempts over the past decades to address the outdated regulatory framework regarding natural health products (NHPs).
Most notable was the failed pursuit of a joint regulatory authority for medicines and other therapeutic products in partnership with Australia under the joint Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Act and the subsequently proposed stand-alone domestic bill last debated in 2016. The trans-Tasman regulatory system met strong concern from consumers and politicians for being overly restrictive and potentially harmful to New Zealand consumers and the natural health industry. The subsequently proposed New Zealand-only regime (the Natural Health and Supplementary Products Bill) acknowledged the low risks of herbal medicines and dietary supplements. It intended to protect consumer choice by providing an appropriate, low-cost access regime to NHPs that are safe, effective, and suitable for use in self-treatment. It enjoyed wide political cross-party, industry, and consumer support, and had passed the second reading in Parliament, despite a minor but vocal opposition. It was a surprise when the incoming Labour government shelved this bill in 2017 due to coalition talks with New Zealand First.
From an international perspective, the current New Zealand legislative framework is out of step. It is a legacy of our colonial past, and does not align with World Health Organisation directives to support and integrate traditional and complementary medicine as a vital part of state-supported or state-funded healthcare to universally cover primary health needs of all residents.
From a domestic perspective, current regulations contravene provisions in the Treaty of Waitangi and also do not adequately support patient choice of healthcare, which is protected under the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights Regulations 1996 of the Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994. This is because the scope and purpose of traditional, non-pharmaceutical medicines cannot be accurately stated due to clauses in the Medicines Act 1981. Although the Dietary Supplement Regulations 1985 (part of the Food Act 1981) provides a framework of a sort for quality requirements, they too disallow therapeutic health claims on NHPs, even when a long-standing empirical knowledge-base or scientific evidence is available. Such restrictions impede appropriate use of these low or non-toxic health products and may even promote the inappropriate use of them through the resulting paucity of appropriate consumer information.
This contrasts with health policies in Australia, Canada and European countries that legally protect the status of traditional medicines. For example, the EU Directive 2004/24/EC grants traditional medicines their own regulatory classification as Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products. Switzerland has gone a step further: since the binding constitutional referendum in 2009, phytotherapy (plant-based medicine) is a treatment option that must be adequately integrated into public healthcare services for its citizens. This constitutional guarantee enables plant medicines to be funded through basic health insurance and secures patient-centred and cost-effective treatment options alongside pharmaceutical drugs and technological interventions.
Rongoā
While all traditional and herbal medicines and dietary supplements such as vitamins and minerals are included under natural health products, it is not clear yet how rongoā, the holistic healing practices based on tikanga and mātauranga Māori, and in particular rākau plant-based remedies, will be treated under TPB and its regulations.
Rongoā Māori is a Te Tiriti-protected taonga, however, there is no explicit reference to Te Tiriti o Waitangi protection clauses in the released draft. At the first reading in Parliament the Minister of Health Hon Andrew Little noted that he has since commissioned a workstream to consider how the ‘regulatory settings support the traditional practice of rongoā while balancing this objective against the need to provide assurances for patient safety and export market access for rongoā practitioners’.
It will be essential that Māori have input in line with the intent of the Crown-Māori partnership model.
Therapeutic Products Bill
The Therapeutic Products Bill (TPB) intends to establish a new regulatory regime that includes plant-based medicines and dietary supplements under the category of natural health products (NHPs). It repeals all secondary legislation made under the Medicines Act 1981 and revokes the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985, with the aim to provide comprehensive, risk-proportionate regulation of the various categories of therapeutic products and technologies.
While the current Medicines Act is administered under Medsafe, the TPB proposes to establish a new Therapeutic Products Regulator that would be responsible for ensuring the safety, quality, and efficacy of regulated products, including natural health products, across their lifecycle. The TPB acknowledges the generally lower-risk of NHPs, which are therefore intended to be evaluated against different standards than those for higher-risk pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices.
It is positive that the TPB recognises plant-based medicines and dietary supplements as therapeutic products as this will allow informed consumer choice, e.g. a herbal remedy for cough will be able to say so.
The TPB also recognises that herbal medicines and dietary supplements are generally low risk. Based on this, it aims to enable a cost-effective regime that gives New Zealanders confidence that their trusted natural health products will remain available, are true to label, and provide the health benefits claimed for them.
If the TPB is passed by Parliament, it will potentially take another 1-2 years to develop the detailed regulations required to complete the regulatory scheme before it comes into force, with a backstop date of 1 September 2026. If done well, TPB could pave the way for a pluralistic healthcare system that – in the words of WHO – finally emphasises people’s rights to quality health services that are available, accessible, affordable, and culturally acceptable.
TPB detail
There is still a significant amount of detail that needs to be determined in secondary legislation to be made under the TPB. It will be imperative that these regulations reflect a regime that is appropriate, feasible, practical, and affordable for NHPs. Dr Clair points out some areas that need clarification and resolution to ensure the objectives of the Bill:
- The list of approved ingredients is as wide as possible.
- In the absence of negative safety reports evidence, a natural health product should be grand-fathered into the system by granting market authorisation if it has been in the New Zealand market for a minimum of 10 years. This ‘well-established use’ principle is a recognised regulatory principle.
- Traditional plant medicines are distinct in their healing purpose and long-standing evidence base from modern dietary supplements which were developed in the 20th century to address nutritional deficiencies. Therefore, they require separate considerations. The right to formally access and use them needs to be adequately protected.
- A definition is needed for ‘Traditional Medicine’ and ‘Traditional Practice’. This should include Rongoā Māori and all WHO-recognised medical traditions.
- The TPB permits health benefit claims with scientific evidence or traditional use. It should also permit those health benefit claims trusted by overseas regulators (e.g. Australia, Canada, EU, UK, Switzerland). Such regulators permit reference to therapeutic uses recorded in authoritative clinical textbooks and monographs as this professional body of literature is the most comprehensive and clinically relevant repository of traditional and empirical evidence. In oral traditions, e.g. Rongoā Māori, recognized traditional experts embody this medical knowledge, and this should be admissible as evidence of traditional use.
- The regulations should allow flexibility in description of conditions. For NHPs, the naming of conditions should not be solely based on the International Classification of Diseases (the ICD) but also by their equivalent in traditional or lay terms, so that they can be related back to traditional evidence and be generally understood by members of the public.
- Practitioner-only category : professionally trained Medical Herbalists and Naturopaths need to be able to maintain access to stronger acting practitioner-only products (not sold over-the-counter). In addition, Schedule 1 of the current Medicines Regulations prevents medical practitioners from legally accessing several traditionally used plant species because they are regulated as pharmaceutical substances in conjunction with their synthetic isolates, regardless of their distinctly different risk profiles and applications. In other jurisdictions, e.g. the UK, such plant species and their whole-plant extracts are available to suitably trained natural health practitioners. Dietary supplements will need to be allowed to contain adequate therapeutic levels of active constituents.
- Many of the ingredients listed under the previous Permitted Substance List (PSL) for natural health products are in fact synthetics. Other jurisdictions, e.g. Switzerland, request the identification of a substance to the public as either natural or synthetic due to their different characteristics, i.e. relating to risk and bioavailability, and consumer preferences. Labelling of New Zealand NHPs should be similarly transparent.
- It is essential that the yet to be appointed advisory committee and proposed dedicated authority is filled with formally engaged subject matter experts on all aspects of traditional and nutritional medicine, namely its products, practices, and professions, and that the administration of these products is separate from pharmaceutical medicines and medical devices.
- The cost recovery framework needs to ensure that compliance costs are fair and equitable for the low-risk NHPs regulated under this Bill so that they remain affordable given that they are presently non-subsidised but used as primary healthcare remedies.
Have your say
Closing date for submissions on the proposed Therapeutics Products Bill has been extended to 5 March 2023. Go to the New Zealand Parliament website for an online submission form to make your opinion count.
Soil & Health Association NZ have published their submission regarding the Bill. View this here: https://soilandhealth.org.nz/submissions/submission-of-the-soil-health-association-on-the-therapeutic-products-bill/
References
- Farnsworth NR, editor. Ethnopharmacolgy and drug development. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons; 1994.
- Barnes J, McLachlan AJ, Sherwin CMT, Enioutina EY. Herbal medicines: Challenges in the modern world. Part 1. Australia and New Zealand. Expert Rev Clin Pharmacol. 2016;9(7):905-915.
- Chrystal K, Allan S, Forgeson G, Isaacs R. The use of complementary/alternative medicine by cancer patients in a New Zealand regional cancer treatment centre. The New Zealand Medical Journal (Online). 2003;116(1168).
- Wilson K, Dowson C, Mangin D. Prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine use in Christchurch, New Zealand: Children attending general practice versus paediatric outpatients. N Z Med J. 2007;120(1251):U2464.
- Medsafe. Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Agency (ANZTPA). 2012.
- Ellena KR. The uncritical enthusiasts versus the uninformed sceptics: Regulation of complementary and alternative medicines. J Law Med. 2005;13(1):106-124.
- Ministry of Health. Natural health and supplementary products. 2017.
- World Health Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Declaration of Astana. 30.04.2019 ed2018.
- Legislation Direct. Ko Aotearoa tēnei: A report into claims concerning New Zealand law and policy affecting Māori culture and identity. Te taumata tuatahi (Waitangi Tribunal report). Wellington, New Zealand2011.
- Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights Regulations 1996, Pub. L. No. 08.10.2018.
- Schweizerischer Bundesrat. Komplementärmedizin: Vergütung neu geregelt. Complementary Medicine Research2017. p. 268.
- World Health Organization. The regional strategy for traditional medicine in the Western Pacific (2011-2020). Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2012.
- Parliament NZ. Therapeutic products bill — first reading. Hasard (Debates) [Internet]. 13 Dec 2022. Available from: https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20221213_20221214_20.
- Organization WH. WHO Drug Information. 2002;16(2).
- Colquhoun I. Medicines with a ‘well established use’. The Journal of the European Medical Writers Association. 2009;18(1):18-20.
- Linnenbrink N. International comparison of specific requirements for registration of phytopharmaceuticals with focus on the European Community. Planta Med. 1990;56:502-503.
- The Medicines (Retail Sale or Supply of Herbal Remedies) Order 1977, (1970).
About the author
Dr Sandra Clair (PhD Health Sciences) established the multiple award-winning plant medicine business, Artemis. Using her skills in health sciences and Swiss medical herbalism, underpinned by academic research into a rare Renaissance medical textbook, Dr Clair formulated plant medicines for her clients, then after 1998 sold these directly to health stores, pharmacies, and practitioners and eventually exporting.
Until July 2021, Dr Clair had a strategic management and governance role overseeing the quality and leading the research and development program of Artemis. She is now a presenter, writer, regulatory advisor and a noted voice for medical herbalism. Watch her TedX presentation on Integrating plant-based medicine into New Zealand’s healthcare system.
The Bill in full
Soil & Health NZ life member Philippa Jamieson, reviewed the 288 pages of the Therapeutic Products Bill
The bill seeks to regulate the manufacture, sale, importing, exporting, prescribing, dispensing, and other activities involving therapeutic products. It covers three classes of products:
- medicines – e.g. pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, gene therapies, cell and tissue therapies, and ‘biologics’ (such as donated blood, tissue, organs, microorganisms),
- medical devices – anything from bandages to pacemakers, dental crowns, surgical mesh, software used therapeutically, robotic surgery machines,
- natural health products (NHPs) – e.g. vitamin and mineral supplements, herbal remedies, tinctures, homeopathics, probiotics.
Many people are concerned that the bill – and the accompanying regulations that are yet to be written – could result in fewer and costlier natural health products. Smaller businesses could struggle with the time and expense of compliance.
“[The bill] gives a blank cheque to a regulator to tell us what herbs and supplements we can use and in what quantity [or dose],” says food safety and natural medicine advocate Dr Guy Hatchard. “They are also allowed to tell us what herbs we can’t use.”
Rongoā Māori are not mentioned in the bill, but the regulator must ‘give effect to the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi and take account of mātauranga Māori and Māori perspectives’.
The bill gives wide decision-making powers to whoever is appointed regulator, with no guarantee that person will have expertise in natural health, traditional medicines and different cultural approaches, or consult with appropriate people who do. It’s more likely a Western medical and pharmaceutical framework will dominate.
In 2017 Medsafe drafted a list of over 7000 NHPs to be permitted substances (which may be adopted and adapted for the new regulations) that included many synthetic substances such as additives with known health risks.
It’s not only about natural health products. Some are concerned the bill could allow increased use of biotechnology, such as gene therapies. Regulation is needed, but can it keep up with this rapidly changing field?
Another question is around liability: currently the Crown can’t be held criminally liable for breaches of the current Medicines Act – should this be changed in the new bill, as the Crown is a large user of therapeutic products in our health system?
Also, the bill would continue to allow direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines. What do you think about this?
The scope of the bill is wide and there is much to consider. The regulations have to be workable for small businesses and practitioners such as naturopaths, and allow for safe, effective, affordable, culturally appropriate healthcare products and a range of choices.
“We can’t sell laxative teas, or at least can’t say a tea has that effect,” an organic shop staff member said recently. “How does that help people who could really benefit from it?”
Health benefit claims are just part of the Therapeutic Products Bill currently before parliament. The bill would allow the makers of those herbal teas to claim laxative effects on the label – if they gain approval of the product, approval of the therapeutic claim, and pay whatever fees are set.
Nourished for Nil’s mission to turn waste into food
New Zealand’s yearly food waste produces 409,234 tonnes of carbon emissions. To offset this we would need to take 150,453 cars off the road for one year or plant 163,693 trees. Rescuing this waste to feed people is a win-win. Christina McBeth tells Bonnie Flaws how she co-ordinates Hawke’s Bay businesses, government assistance, sister organisations, and volunteers to redirect waste into food for over 1200 families.
Photography by Nourished for Nil
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Introduction to biodynamics
Biodynamics is a holistic organic practice that views a farm as an entire organism. Rebecca Reider explains the fundamentals of this earthy yet cosmic system of growing.
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Ethical omnivorism: a case for eating meat
Meat is a divisive subject for ethical, environmental and health reasons. As part of an ongoing conversation we’ll be running on this topic, Bonnie Flaws shares her view on why planetary and human health is compatible with ethical omnivorism.
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Creating food forests with syntropic agroforestry
Jared Hiakita is a practitioner of syntropic agroforestry and the founder of ōNuku, a charitable trust in Hokianga that provides opportunities for the community to build more resilient food systems. He talks about growing food for whānau and the whenua.
Photography and words by Jared Hiakita
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The wellbeing of food in Aotearoa
We produce enough food in New Zealand to feed 40 million people, yet one in five Kiwi kids live in households that experience food insecurity.
Gareth Hughes talks about his new role as lead of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa.
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How do you get a cabbage? My book, A Gentle Radical: The life of Jeanette Fitzsimons, was recently published, and in researching the biography I stumbled upon an unusual speech the late Green Party politician had given at the Fourth New Zealand Energy Conference entitled “Two Ways to Get a Cabbage”. What on earth did cabbages have to do with a late 1970s energy conference? Fortunately, I was able to track down a faded typewriter-written copy of her speech where Jeanette used the vegetable as an example of the very different approaches society takes to provide things like cabbages.
The mainstream approach, even back then, was energy intensive, relying on artificial fertilisers, chemical pesticides, insecticides and fungicides, and complicated fossil fuel-dependent transport and retail chains. The embedded energy and resources that went into growing a commercial cabbage was huge, and if it wasn’t the uniform size, shape or appearance it would be thrown out rather than sold at the market. She contrasted that cabbage with the home-grown organic variety planted and tended with no need for machinery and pesticides, saying “It represents time, effort, caring and an exchange with the earth.” The home-grown cabbage was fresher, tastier and more nutritious but she pointed out that only the commercial cabbage was represented in official economic statistics of progress.
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What does our food really cost us?
We’ve never had more volume of food produced globally than now but our connection to that food is at its lowest point in history. Are we looking at the bigger picture when we buy a cabbage or any item in our modern food system? The current paradigm is dominated by corporate giants, global trade networks and is dependent on huge inputs of energy and chemicals. While we might complain about the high cost of food in the supermarket as inflation rates rise, the really staggering cost is being paid by earth systems – soil, water and atmosphere. How we produce food is a major driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. Every year we draw down further on nature’s balance sheet while too often only valuing the financial one.
Across my 20-year career as a progressive campaigner and Member of Parliament, food has remained as a major theme across all my mahi. I’ve led the engagement work for New Zealand’s food rescue sector, been arrested dressed as Ronald McDonald, which triggered the fast-food giant to ditch GE-fed chicken, protested palm oil ships and Fonterra’s gigantic use of coal, passed the Country of Origin of Food Act so Kiwis can know where their food has come from, and for our moana achieved a ban on shark finning and negotiated in government for cameras on fishing boats. Food touches every part of our lives, society and economy – how it’s grown, how it’s sold and who gets it.
I’ve recently started working for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, a global collaboration of organisations, individuals and governments to transform the economic system into one that prioritises shared well-being for people and the planet, as the Aotearoa country lead. A wellbeing economy would deliver purpose, nature, fairness and participation – what would that look like for food in New Zealand?
Right now we have an unhealthy relationship with food. We export a volume of food that’s estimated to feed up to 40 million people yet one in five Kiwi kids live in households that experience food insecurity. There’s real hunger and malnutrition in New Zealand. Despite the cost of food – highlighted recently by the Commerce Commission’s staggering estimate that $1 million dollars a day in excess profit is being taken from consumers by the supermarket duopoly – on average, each New Zealand household throws out an estimated $1520 worth of food every year. Collectively, that’s more than $3 billion worth of good food rotting away and contributing to climate change. Agricultural production is responsible for half of New Zealand’s emissions, and dairy’s impact on our rivers and lakes, and nitrate contamination of water supplies are well-known problems. Every year 192 million tonnes of our most precious resource – soil – washes out to sea as a result of our land-use practices. New Zealand still sprays chemicals banned in Europe and uses destructive bottom-trawling fishing techniques, smashing ancient deep sea coral.
Making progress
Despite the gloom, there are bright spots emerging. We see the growth of food cooperatives and farmers’ markets where consumers can have a closer relationship with producers. The organics sector grew 20 percent between 2017 and 2020. Regenerative farming has become a household name, and more farmers are experimenting with reducing stocking rates and finding that their profits are increasing.
Food-rescue organisations report 30 million meals were provided in the last year, turning an environmental problem into a social solution. Pātaka kai (free pantries) are popping up all over Aotearoa to facilitate sharing food. New products are hitting the market, from pea-protein meat alternatives and bread made from crickets to delicious oat milk brands. Growing numbers of New Zealanders are eating more plant-based meals for health, environmental or ethical reasons, and as a nation dependent on food and fibre exports, international consumers’ desires to purchase food with lower climate and higher animal-welfare standards continue to drive change.
It could be said that today’s problems were once yesterday’s solutions. Around the turn of the millennium, farmers were actively encouraged to convert to dairy and expand into regions totally unsuited to hit exponential growth targets. A focus on volume over value has come with real costs. As we deal with today’s problems – dependence on milk powder exports, environmental degradation, the cost of food, genuine food poverty, and reliance on unethical inputs like palm kernel expeller and phosphate from occupied Western Sahara – we need to ensure we aren’t creating tomorrow’s problems.
What would a fair system look like?
A wellbeing economy of food would look at broader outcomes than just growth rates or profit; it would value wider issues as well – resiliency, sustainability, fairness and access.
One positive example of this happening right now is the fact there is such a thing as a free lunch in New Zealand. Currently 220,000 kids are receiving free lunches in low-decile schools. The primary objective was to make sure children going without were fed, but what schools report are additional benefits for students’ health and food awareness. It’s impacting their attendance, ability to learn and participate in class and is building a sense of school community. It’s a solution-multiplier that was avoided for many years just on the question of cost, and is delivering significant benefits. Ideally we will build on the success and ensure the food used is organic, grown locally and that students can connect with growers.
Another example is Wakatū, a company owned by 4000 Māori families in the Nelson region. Wakatū has a 500-year strategy focused on their tikanga, or values, the taonga that is the land and water, and manaakitanga for the people. Kono, their food branch, is one of the region’s largest employers and exports to more than 80 countries.
Imagine if New Zealand and our food system had a 500-year strategy! We have made a start – factoring in well-being in our national budgets, and now we need to do that in all the decisions government and business make. How we grow a cabbage, produce milk or catch a fish matters more than just the quarterly profit and loss statement.
I believe thinking long term and holistically from a wellbeing perspective would encourage regenerative, restorative agriculture and food sovereignty. Tangata whenua would be able to harvest kai from healthy rivers and seas. We’d see more food forests and community gardens. We would eat food in season and we would know its provenance and how it was produced. Food poverty would be consigned to history and nutritious organic food would be available for all – not just those who can afford it. Let’s move from just counting commercial cabbages to valuing everything that matters.
Gareth Hughes is a former Green Party MP and the country lead for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance: weall.org.
Visiting Motueka’s Toad Hall café
Louise Perzigian visits a Motueka food business that serves up freshly grown organic produce grown on the same plot of land.
Photography: Victoria Vincent
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The history of GE in New Zealand
Bonnie Flaws investigates New Zealand’s ongoing debate on the regulation of genetic modification
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The question of whether we should allow genetic engineering in New Zealand has been raging for almost as long as the technology has been around – since the 1970s. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the sentiment among the public was decidedly anti-GMO, with protest a regular feature of the political landscape, including famous hīkoi that travelled from Northland to Wellington. Now the topic is in the headlines again after the Productivity Commission recommended in its 2021 report that New Zealand’s strict laws regulating genetic engineering ought to be reviewed, in part because the techniques used have evolved.
GM, GMO, GE, GEd – what exactly does it all mean?
- New Zealand law defines a genetically modified organism (GMO) as any organism in which any of the genes or other genetic material have been modified by, inherited or otherwise derived through any number of replications, by in vitro techniques.
- Genetic engineering (GE) is the use of in vitro techniques to make genetically modified organisms.
- Genetic modification (GM) is used interchangeably with the term genetic engineering by experts in the field.
- Transgenic techniques, what we traditionally think of as genetic engineering, use a foreign “gene of interest” that has been cultured and inserted into a cell of the host organism. Today, it’s more common to hear about gene editing (GEd) techniques, such as CRISPR-Cas9, TALENs and ZFNs.
- Gene editing (GEd) techniques have been around since the late 70s, but some tools (nucleases) like CRISPRCas9, TALENs and ZFNs are new.
The use of language in the GM debate
The language used to describe genetic engineering has often been contested by those who would like to see it deregulated. For example, it’s been argued that conventional and selective breeding of plants is a form of genetic engineering. More recently, it has been argued that the biochemical processes of gene editing are similar to those that cause natural mutations.
Jack Heinemann, a professor at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury, who promotes regulation, says the “equivalence to nature” argument is a semantic obfuscation, but a High Court ruling in 2014 made it unambiguous. New Zealand became the first country to make it explicit in law that gene editing is a technique of genetic modification, meaning it must be regulated. Heinemann was the expert witness in this case. This ruling hinged on the ability of the technique to make changes at scale that wouldn’t happen in nature, he says.
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A potted history
This tension between those for and against regulation has been a continuous thread in the national discourse, with the public generally wanting controls, and industry and parts of academia wanting more freedom to experiment.
After a field trial moratorium was lifted in 1987, the public became increasingly agitated about GE experimentation, particularly around the issue of contamination of agricultural crops, and demand for tighter regulation grew. The first big breakthrough for activists came with the 1996 Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act, leading to the creation of the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA). This was the body responsible for overseeing importation, development, field trials and releases of GMOs. The act allowed scientists to experiment with GM techniques in the lab and in contained field trials.
But GE experiments began to cross lines that many people found distasteful and unethical. The worry that GMOs might escape from the lab and contaminate and self-propagate in the environment, or that food with foreign genes inserted might end up on their plate kept activists like Zelka Grammer motivated.
“You have this whole nefarious history of incompetence and slackness, and then even worse, MAF and MPI not adequately monitoring to catch significant breaches of ERMA’s rules of approval,” says the chair of GE-free Tai Tokerau. “People like Stefan Browning from the Green party and local orchardists had to go and find secret field trial locations, take photographic evidence, march down to MAF and MPI and say, ‘WTF! Why are these brassicas flowering out of doors when it’s not allowed under the conditions of approval?’ It was shut down in disgrace over and over and over.”
There was a strong feeling that regulators were not adequately monitoring trials, and the rapid development of the biotech industry was seen as a threat to New Zealand’s agricultural sector. Despite this, industry and academic voices were keen to see the technology liberated for use in both the biomedical and agricultural spheres. Without deregulation, New Zealand would be left behind in the technological and economic race.
Organisations such as the Royal Society Te Apārangi, Plant & Food Research, Scion, NZBio, Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, Agcarm (New Zealand Association for Animal Health and Crop Protection) and Federated Farmers have all advocated for greater deregulation of genetic engineering over the years.
A petition signed by 92,000 Kiwis called for a Royal Commission to investigate and establish a way forward for the controversial technology. This was done, and in 2000 the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification validated many of the concerns voices by activists. The overall recommendation was to “proceed with caution”, while also rejecting the unrestricted use of genetic engineering. Within a year, a voluntary moratorium was put in place – all in all a landmark year for people power.
Several memorable hīkoi in 2001 and 2003 followed the Commission’s findings. Māori played a big part in their organisation but the movement was broad-based and many New Zealanders took part. Groups like GE-Free New Zealand and Mothers Against Genetic Engineering (MAdGE) had a prominent public voice. In 2015 the Northland and Hastings regions were successful in asserting their own “GE free” status in their district plans.
It is clear that everyone is in it for the money. The risks can be dismissed by appealing to the benefits, and when the benefits are not forthcoming, the promises have to be kept alive. Biotechnology is the south sea bubble at the end of the millennium.
A quote from “The Biotechnology Bubble”, an article by Mae-Wan Ho, Hartmut Meyer and Joe Cummins, originally published in The Ecologist and reprinted in the July 1999 issue of Organic NZ.
However in 2012, CRISPR, a new gene editing tool, had been discovered. Proponents argued it was more precise than transgenics, and led to changes similar to what might happen naturally. Proponents said the technology should be set free to fulfil its potential. It could be applied not only in food production, but also in medical research, pest control and even to tackle climate change.
At the same time, a growing body of scientific literature showed that gene editing gave rise to numerous unintended genetic mutations, and was not as precise as claimed. The Sustainability Council of New Zealand took the Environmental Protection Authority (formerly ERMA) to court to challenge industry claims that gene editing was not genetic engineering.
The 2014 High Court ruling, which determined gene editing was legally a form of genetic modification, also established that the rate and specificity of change was what made the technology risky.
Key dates in the history of GE
| 1973 | First recombinant bacteria is developed in the US. |
| 1978 | The New Zealand government places a moratorium on field releases that remains in place for 10 years. |
| 1980s | The early 1980s sees GE technologies begin to be applied in laboratories in New Zealand, largely for biological and medical research purposes. |
| 1988 | The moratorium on field release is lifted and an Interim Assessment Group (IAG) is established for the field testing and release of genetically modified organisms. |
| 1996 | Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 passes in law, which leads to the establishment of the Environmental Risk Management Authority New Zealand (ERMA). |
| 1999 | The Independent Biotechnology Advisory Committee is established to assess and provide independent advice on the use of GE technology. |
| 2000 | The Royal Commission on Genetic Modification is established and a voluntary moratorium put in place. |
| 2008 | Activists chop down GE pine trees at a Scion forestry research site near Rotorua in 2008 and 2012. |
| 2011 | ERMA becomes the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). |
| 2012 | CRISPR is invented, adding a new tool to the GE toolbox. |
| 2014 | The High Court rules that gene editing is a form of genetic modification. |
| 2015 | Both the Hastings and Northland regions become GE free. |
| 2016 | Auckland becomes GE free. |
| 2021 | Productivity Commission report recommends a full review of HSNO. |
The Māori world view
Māori have largely been vocal opponents of GE from the beginning. “The issue is that using GE will have an impact on the mauri of our food and the soil,” says Lahni Wharerau, kaiwhakahaere of Te Waka Kai Ora, the National Māori Organics Authority. “Mauri is what gives us life force and underpins wellbeing. GE interferes with that.”
Wider news reporting since the Productivity Commission’s report shows that attitudes aren’t set in stone. Maui Hudson, associate professor at the University of Waikato, said a national survey of Māori on the issue of genetic modification and gene editing was done last year, showing a wide variety of perspectives were held. “For some people it’s all the same, whether it’s genetic modification or gene editing, while for others they get that there is a difference and that may change the way you think about it.” However, a “proceed with caution” approach was still valued. “In the context of the conversations we’ve had, there is no appetite for a totally unregulated environment for gene editing.”
The Productivity Commission and the global push for GE deregulation
The New Zealand Productivity Commission last year called for a complete review of HSNO, as well as the legislative framework and institutional arrangements governing genetic engineering, suggesting separate legislation or a standalone regulator.
“Technologies have moved on significantly over the last 20 years. In particular, advances in gene editing have produced technologies such as CRISPR, which enable much faster and more precise modification than earlier tools,” it says in its 2021 report.
Once again, proponents have seized the opportunity to promote deregulation. Jack Heinemann says the push for deregulation is happening globally. Pulling no punches,
he calls it an orchestrated campaign by vested interests – industry and those parts of academia aligned with industry outcomes – that follows the same pattern everywhere, drowning out voices of scientific doubt.
As a geneticist, he is immensely positive about the benefit to society of regulated genetic engineering in the lab, but says both the utopian promise of genetic engineering – how it’s promoted to the public and the regulators – and the risk profile remain unchanged since regulations were put in place. What gene editing does is change the scale and speed at which interventions can be made in nature, he says. “That is precisely what makes a technology risky.”
President of GE-Free New Zealand Claire Bleakley says the HSNO regulations follow a clear pathway to ensure products are safe. “Because GMOs are living organisms they might contaminate the indigenous flora and fauna, the economic crops, or have serious health effects. Our biggest concern is that the Productivity Commission report was basically minimising the dangers of GMOs and highlighting the simplicity of them.”
Sociologist Jodie Bruning agrees the report obfuscates risk, and doesn’t represent what the bulk of submissions had been asking for – just two out of 80 submissions (both from the medical industry) that fed into the Productivity Commission’s 2021 report argued that HSNO should be opened up.
The main fear Jack Heinemann, Claire Bleakley and Jodie Bruning convey is that without the appropriate checks and balances, and careful scientific oversight, niche experimentation with the ability to change organisms at pace and scale would proliferate, and with them, unintended consequences.
“Regulation is not a ban. It isn’t stopping anything. Good science is like good democracy – it needs accountability and transparency. No dark corners,” Bruning says.
