Australian seed giant Pacific Seeds has been forced to incinerate 30 tonnes of maize in Auckland, New Zealand, after it emerged that the seed was contaminated with genetically modified material.
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The GM material, designed to ensure insect and weed resistance, was discovered after routine post harvest testing. Tests are now underway to discover the source of contamination.
GM crops are banned in NZ, and the country’s Ministry of Agriculture has reassured consumers that the affected corn seed has not entered the food chain.
Pacific Seeds MD Chris Bazley told ABC Rural News that Australian growers need not worry because the maize was grown in NZ. He admitted however that incinerating the seed will prove costly: “It’s going to cost us a lot of money based on destroying the seed, you know we’ve already had to pay people to grow it and then we’re destroying it.
“We’re going to have to pay for monitoring and cleaning up and there’s been a lot of other on-costs on top of all of that.”
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