The article talks lots about GMO food, which is a valid consideration.
Is it fair to say that another aspect the article seemed to skip over is the potential for genetic modification, gene drives and so on for possible pest control strategies? Something like Crispr wasn’t even a concept in 1996 when the current legislation was passed.
NZ has some unique pest problems that are likely to need local research for some of the specifics which might be really really useful here in future, but my understanding is that current GMO-blocking legislation kind of knee-caps a lot of that possible research beyond a certain point and makes it really hard, or impossible.
It might be that it’s still appropriate to keep those restrictions in place because these are big decisions with potentially big consequences, or not, but I think it’s something that also needs consideration alongside the food angle.
Yeah, I think genetic modification will play a big role in NZ’s pest strategy at some point in the future. I doubt the technology’s ready yet, especially when it comes to mammals. But it might not be too long until we’re able to do something like the stuff they’re doing with mosquitoes in the US at the moment.
NZ blew it’s chances to become a GMO free country and charge premium for it’s exports to a segment of the world’s population that’s willing to pay significantly more for GMO products.
Now they have to join the race to the bottom and compete with massive exporters of foods like Mexico, Canada, USA, China etc and they all subsidise their agriculture which is putting us at a great disadvantage.
We suck at capitalism.
A few years ago I sat in on a talk from a chap by the name of John Knight, who was at the time an economics prof down at Otago. He’d been doing some work with people in Europe, and they’d come to the conclusion that, people usually say they would prefer to buy non-GMO foods, but …
- If all the prices were the same, people tend to buy non-GMO foods.
- If GMO labeled foods were cheaper, and other customers were present, people would tend to buy non-GMO foods.
- If GMO labeled foods were cheaper and no other customers were present, people tended to buy the GMO labelled foods.
I think that was the rough summary. Not sure how much further that research went, but I thought it was interesting. I … think this was it - https://www.gefree.org.nz/assets/Clean-Green-Book-email-11.pdf
I don’t know that I was ever entirely convinced that there was huge potential for charging a premium due to being a non-GMO country. For a whole bunch of other reasons though, fully on board with your summation: “We suck at Capitalism” :)
I think if you look at populations as a whole most people will just buy the cheapest thing on the shelf. But I am not talking about “most people”, there is a significant minority of people who pay for premium products and that’s the market I think we should have targeted. We can’t compete in the “cheapest price” market.
I think the point of it (or one of the points) was that that market of of people who would pay a premium, was way, way smaller than everyone used to think it was.
Self reporting - essentially asking people if they would pay a premium, enough people always replied that they would, to make it seem as if there was a sizeable global market that would pay the premium.
If I recall correctly, wihen push came to shove at the till though, their work suggested that that global market, was tiny.
I think the point of it (or one of the points) was that that market of of people who would pay a premium, was way, way smaller than everyone used to think it was.
Let’s say it’s small. Let’s say it’s five percent. The five percent of America and Europe and China that is willing to pay more could completely gobble up everything we sell and still need more. Companies like Porche, Lexus, Luis Vitton etc make a shit ton of money catering to a tiny percent of the population.
Because we chose not to enter into that market we are not tiny fish in a giant ocean fighting for the crumbs that fall through the cracks.
Like I said. We suck at capitalism and chose to enter into an arena with the biggest, most trained, most roided up fighters wearing our boxer shorts and boxing gloves we bought at k-mart. No wonder we are having so much trouble.
While Porsche might make a shit-tonne of money from a eye-watering markups to appeal to people with more money that taste, their costs are spectacularly high, and they employ large amounts of highly competent engineers (the car companies at least, I doubt Louis Vuitton does) and marketers to make a premium product. Advertising the production of our agricultural sector as non-GMO was never going to turn in into a premium product. My assumption is that our produce is looked up favorably in foreign markets, as good, but not necessarily premium. Some of it is marketed as premium, but trying to upscale our entire agricultural sector to that level would I suspect, fail magnificently. You can bring together the people needed to do something like that at a company level, but at a country level - I just don’t think there’s a sufficient number of highly competent people to be able to do that.
And we wouldn’t have been the only ones appealing to that market. Gambling the entire agricultural sector on being able to dominate that tiny sector would be incredibly dangerous.
I don’t disagree that we’re awful at capitalism though.
My current pick for illustrating that would be Fonterra - it’s my understanding that the vast majority of Fonterra’s exports are milk powder bound for a spectacularly large range of industrial uses. Overseas, there are companies slowly ramping up the production of milk grown in vats using GE yeast. Produces milk powder with a fraction of the resources a dairy farm, with a fraction of the environmental costs. Companies who use milk powder as part of an industrial process don’t care whether it came from a vat full of yeast or a lovely open air dairy farm. And as best I can tell, Fonterra doesn’t think this is likely to cause any problems. Fonterra could try and move all of that production to premium produce for the consumer, but if that market existed, I would have thought they would have already done it. I don’t think the problem here is that they are selling to the wrong sector or not marketing their produce as well as they could - I think it’s that we produce too much milk. We pile all of our eggs in one basket and then insist that that’s not a potential problem.
Advertising the production of our agricultural sector as non-GMO was never going to turn in into a premium product
this is where you are wrong. Right now in the USA and Europe there are no labeling laws so the consumer can’t be sure they are getting a GMO free product. If the entire country was GMO free the people who want non GMO products would gladly pay much more for NZ made products because they would know it’s “pure”.
And we wouldn’t have been the only ones appealing to that market. Gambling the entire agricultural sector on being able to dominate that tiny sector would be incredibly dangerous.
No other country would be GMO free so we would be the only ones and we already gamble our entire economy on just avocados, kiwifruit and milk. We saw what just one little disease did to the kiwifruit industry and our economy.
My current pick for illustrating that would be Fonterra - it’s my understanding that the vast majority of Fonterra’s exports are milk powder bound for a spectacularly large range of industrial uses.
yes and competing with Canada and the USA for the lowest price while doing it. It’s a terrible strategy.
Overseas, there are companies slowly ramping up the production of milk grown in vats using GE yeast.
Are they? Which countries? What’s the brand of milk? How much of it is being sold? I haven’t heard of anybody selling yeast milk so this sounds like a folk tale to me.
Fonterra could try and move all of that production to premium produce for the consumer, but if that market existed, I would have thought they would have already done it.
they can’t. There is nothing differentiating fonterra milk powder from any other milk powder. They should have concentrated on value add products like cheese and such but as I said we suck at capitalism in this country.
We might have been the only country. There would have been a tonne of other companies not from New Zealand competing in that market though. I odn’t think we’re going to agree on that though so … moving on.
There being nothing differentiating Fonterra milk powder from any other milk powder is entirely my point - if they could have moved their production to premium markets, they would have. They haven’t, which suggests to me that they can’t. So at least we agree on that :)
The milk in a vat thing, it’s been around in some fairly primitive forms for several years, it’s been very interesting watching it develop.
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-yeast-cow.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/03/12/precision-cultivated-dairy/
There’s a bunch of companies - Perfect Day and New Culture in the US, Legendairy Foods in Germany. Remilk in Israel. If there’s not someone, somewhere in amongst all that planning on ramping up produce milk powder for industrial uses, I’d be very surprised. As I say, companies who use milk powder in their industrial processes, literally do not care if it comes from a vat or a cow. Short term not so much. Long term, I don’t see how this doesn’t screw Fonterra if they carry on as if it was nothing.
Great article. I personally hope this ban is lifted, but I’m also worried about who does it.
I would prefer we shy away from roundup ready crops, but would love some crops with built in resistance to disease, like BT crop.
The article doesn’t mention glyphosate. Everyone has their own beliefs about GMO. I personally don’t mind eating GMO crops.
The thing I don’t want is increased levels of pesticide residue on my vegetables. Glyphosate goes hand in hand with GMO crops in other, unregulated, markets.
TBH it really seems like a very poor article. While I’m actually in favor of revisiting the GMO regulations, this article only presents one point of view, the positive benefits of GMO, and pretty much ignores the potential negatives.
In other words,typical NZ journalism.
Hey no one tell anyone but most of the apples we export are man made. Most of hawks bay is dedicated to just growing apples… That were developed in a lab, and the fact is they can’t grow well without human intervention ( thinning, pruning, etc)…
Let’s not even mention the “organic” pesticides they spray on them that gives you blisters if your in the orchard too long.
So should we just be poor and starve or are we going to actually drop this sharade and try and feed people ?
the fact is they can’t grow well without human intervention ( thinning, pruning, etc)…
That’s a bit of an understatement. If you plant an apple tree from a seed you don’t even get apples like the apple the seed came from. Every apple tree is grafted onto a tree that isn’t even an apple tree.
Let’s not even mention the “organic” pesticides they spray on them that gives you blisters if your in the orchard too long.
People misuderstand the term. “Organic” spray just means not artificial. It’s still poison. (There are more requirements for organic food)
So should we just be poor and starve or are we going to actually drop this sharade and try and feed people ?
20 years ago I supported the GMO free stance. You can’t really undo it, and there was the potential for premium products. Now, I think that either did or didn’t work and we should know by now if the market exists and make a call.
It was a silly law that achieved nothing positive. We consume GM food every day, and there are probably wild gm crops growing in NZ accidently through imports.
But we get no upside. No improved yields or better tasting foods.
