More detail on gene tech regulations to come, as industry mulls opportunities

The Gene Technology Bill was discussed at length at the second annual Plant Breeders' Forum in Ōtautahi Christchurch on Thursday, hosted by the New Zealand Plant Breeders and Research Association (NZPBRA).

The bill sought to overhaul current legislation that restricted the use of gene technologies in New Zealand, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HSNO) from 1996.

The risks, opportunities and challenges of gene technologies were debated by hundreds during the select committee process, which drew 15,000 submissions.

Many scientists said the effective near 30-year ban on the use of gene technologies like gene editing, transgenic breeding or other new breeding techniques used outside the laboratory held them back from progress, leaving them with the slower traditional breeding techniques.

However critics - including conventional and organic farming and anti-genetic engineering (GE) movements - raised concerns about the co-existence of genetically-modified (GM) and non-GM crops on farms, market access, human and environmental health concerns from GM foods and via animal feed, and the controls and requirements for the use of these technologies outside the laboratory.

Read more about the Gene Technology Bill:

• Gene technology changes: What you need to know
• Why some of our biggest exporters are worried about the Gene Technology Bill
• Select committee hears submissions on Gene Technology Bill
• Modifying our gene modification laws

Risk management framework expected in the coming months - MBIE

Biological chemist Professor Emily Parker chaired the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment's gene technology technical advisory group.

Speaking at the Plant Breeders' Forum, she said there had been significant scientific and technological advances since 1996 when the HSNO Act first came into force, and the current regulatory system was seen as a "significant barrier" to getting approval for genetic technology projects.

"Primary legislation which is what is before the House at the moment, is the scaffold" she said.

"But it will be underpinned by secondary legislation. This is regulations, notices, standards, things that are issued under secondary legislation.

"That has a lot of detail about exactly how different activities are managed and there's a lot of technical detail in that, but I know that there will be a lot of interest by this community in that secondary legislation."

Parker said the regulations, that were expected in the fourth quarter of the year, would go out for full public consultation.

"It sets up a stand-alone regulatory regime; it creates what we call an authorisation framework to manage the risks of gene tech and enable their safe use," Parker said.

"And we have international obligations, such as we're signatories to the Cartagena Protocol that we need to make sure we manage within that legislation."

In 2000, New Zealand signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty which aimed to protect biological diversity and human health from the possible risks of importing or exporting living modified organism, including GMOs.

Parker said the new approach was modelled very closely to Australia's Gene Technology Act (2002) that was now under its third review.

She said requirements for the use of new breeding techniques like gene editing would be specified, and whether they would be notified or non-notified with the public, based on where they fell in risk categories.

"What will not be regulated is some organisms and gene technologies can be exempted under the regulations and there will be a set of non-regulated organisms and technology."

Parker said she was unable to answer questions asked by a GE-Free New Zealand spokesperson at the forum, if activities exempted from the regulations would be required to feature on a public register, cover liability, or feature on the label.

Last month, Food Safety Minister Andrew Hoggard and his Australian counterparts agreed to update the definitions for GM food in Australia and New Zealand, which saw food made with the addition of new or novel DNA no longer being required to state that on the food label.

Parker said the public would be able to have their say on the upcoming details.

"There will be a lot more opportunity to comment and to have feedback on how the scheme is being used, how this framework is going to be populated, and whether that appropriately manages to be suitable for human health and for the environment."

The roll-out of the legislation, if it was accepted by Cabinet, will be a multi-government agency effort.

The Ministry for Business and Innovation was the lead government agency, the Environmental Protection Authority will be the regulator, and the Ministry for Primary Industries will be the enforcer.

Primary industries consider pros and cons of GM

One technique of interest that arose among many scientists at the event was gene-editing technique CRISPR, that forestry institute Scion launched in May last year.

Geneticist Sai Arojju of the Radiata Pine Breeding Company - the only one in New Zealand - said CRISPR and RNA techniques were of interest to the industry - that started using genomic selection in 2022.

"In terms of accelerated genetic gain, we feel like adopting new technologies is the way to go," he said at the forum.

"Genomics is one example that I've shown you and the remote sensing is the other way that we can sort of accelerate those genetic gains in our breeding programme.

"We are keeping an eye on the new technologies as well, for example, CRISPR, how does it fit into our breeding programme, and RNA is the other technology which can be used as a disease control, basically."

However, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Board abandoned discussions around genetic engineering in forestry in 2023, and decided not to investigate GM trees.

"The decision considered the different views in FSC's membership around the learning process, the division this brings to FSC as well as the potential risk to FSC's mission and reputation. The decision was made by consensus, with two board members expressing reservations about the process," it said in a statement in March 2023.

Null segregants descended from genetically modified organisms (GMO) that were considered transgenes, but do not contain those modifications anymore, were no longer considered GMO.

Molecular biologist Dr Revel Drummond of Plant and Food Research - now the Bioeconomy Institute - said conventional breeding was done in multi-year stages for apples, which took a "a very long time".

He said using null segregants could accelerate one stage of the breeding process, from around five years for apples, to just one.

"A null segregant is simply something that used to be transgenic and no longer is, so we've taken the transgenic part out of the equation by crossing it away," he said.

He said the method was useful, like a "trick" where instead of waiting four or five years for an apple through traditional breeding, it could be cut down to one year.

"Now you could do a breeding cycle per year in a fruit tree," he said.

"Annual breeding makes a lot of sense here."

Jazz apples, for example, were considered one of New Zealand's relatively faster genetic developments taking around 15 years to come to market, using traditional breeding techniques cross-breeding Braeburn and Royal Gala cultivars.

Forage breeding was a significant sector that contributed hugely to agricultural success, and had been developed in Aotearoa for the past century.

Germplasm - or genetic resources such as seeds, tissues or DNA sequences - was described as "the lifeblood of our industry," by Dr Derek Woodfield, the now retired general manager at PGG Wrightson Seeds.

Woodfield said ryegrass and associated endophytes made up around 60-70 percent of the overall forage breeding effort in New Zealand, driven by the need to increase livestock production.

"Animals cannot compensate by eating more poor quality forage, they will just grow slower and so the aim of forage breeding is to have high quality forage and high amounts of it to drive animal performance."

He said consolidation and rationalisation of the sector had concentrated breeding efforts, listing three of the four main forage breeders as internationally-owned.

CropMark, the event sponsor, was the only one that remained New Zealand-owned, he said.

"I think we have a huge risk in our forage industry from overseas ownership of our core breeding programmes," Woodfield said.

"We are susceptible to overseas investors deciding we are not profitable enough or they're reducing their investment or changing the way in which we do it.

"Now they'll only do that for sensible reasons, economic reasons, we hope. But you know we do have to work out what that means long-term for New Zealand."

The Health Select Committee declined to comment on how the 15,000 Gene Technology Bill submissions were split in terms of support or opposition, ahead of the release of its report to Cabinet due on 22 August.

The second and third reading of the bill was expected later this year, before the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator was tipped to go live in 2026.

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