March 3, 2010
New Zealand farmers urged to consider GM grasses
New Zealand''s pastoral industry needs to consider using genetically modified (GM) grasses if it wants to maintain high productivity in future, according to Stephen Goldson, chief scientist of state-owned AgResearch.
The Royal Society of New Zealand has released a discussion paper on the possible use of GM grasses, which have been under development for years and are almost ready for release to the market.
The grasses have been bred to develop desirable traits such as drought resistance, improving animal productivity and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr Goldson said the sustainability of agriculture must be transformed and the emission of greenhouse gases needs to be mitigated. Fertiliser and fuel costs have risen and there are concerns about the potential limits of continuing business in the same way.
Dr Goldson acknowledged, though, that it will be consumer attitudes to GM products that will dictate whether GM crops are used by the industry.
He thinks that those attitudes may be changing due to concerns about climate change, the impact of agriculture on the environment and the security of the global food supply.
Dr Goldson said the next stage is to see whether the advances made in contained GM grass research can be replicated in open-field tests, though it is not yet known when an application will be made for these trials to go ahead.
However, the Sustainability Council is arguing against the suggestion that the GM grasses could help make the future of pastoral agriculture to be more certain.
Executive director Simon Terry said traditional grass breeding methods are just as good, without the risk of generating consumer resistance.
"Improved grasses are available today that already reduce nitrate leeching or reduce methane, so they do it without GM and they do it without the risk inherent in GM technology," Terry said. "What we''ve given to understand by this paper is that there have been some developments but they haven''t been quantified."