Hobbs Must Veto ERMA’s GE-Onion Trial

The SOIL & HEALTH Assn of NZ (Inc)

The Soil and Health Association challenges Environment Minister Marian Hobbs to use her power of veto against ERMA’s decision allowing a field trial of roundup ready onions.

Steffan Browning co-chair of Soil and Health said that during the GE moratorium debate, the Minister assured us that commodity crops would not be expected to be grown but the focus would be on exciting high value and safe products.

An onion sprayed with the herbicide roundup, which is now banned in Denmark, is hardly going to be an exciting, safe or high value product he added.

Mr Browning noted the economic benefit touted by Crop and Food was across the entire New Zealand onion crop and that would be nothing less than value dropping of an important New Zealand crop and further tarnishing New Zealands clean green image.

Roundup is proven to damage soil life and increasingly implicated with human health and environmental issues as shown in recent reports.

Mr Browning said that the Minister has the ability to stop the farce of an experiment that has no benefit for New Zealands economy, health or environment.

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