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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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

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.