New Zealand’s government has announced that an effective ban on gene technology will be lifted at the end of 2025. New Zealand is said to currently operate one of the world’s most stringent gene technology regulations.
Speaking at a briefing, held at Plant & Food Research, a New Zealand Crown Research Institute, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said: “From the end of 2025 research and trials of gene technologies and products including medicines and vaccines based on gene technologies will become available in New Zealand. New regulation and a dedicated regulator will oversee gene technology to ensure that it is used safely. This change will bring enormous opportunities and benefits for New Zealand.” Luxon said.
Intended to support New Zealand’s scientists using the technology in a range of areas the new regulation, which will update rules put in place in 1996, will allow field testing and ultimately commercial production in the country. “New Zealand has shut itself off from the big advances being made in the scientific world, and we risk being left behind as other countries, including Australia and many others, harness these new biotechnologies,” Luxon said. The move brings New Zealand in line with some 29 countries such as Argentina, Canada and the US where genetically modified crops are grown.
Taking its lead from a system adopted in Australia, the New Zealand government said that a regulator will be established which would allow the country to access the benefits and manage the risks of genetic technologies. The government added that the regulator will use a hybrid approach, meaning that specific gene technologies can be exempted from regulations.
Activities exempted from regulation will be those that either involve minimal risk or cannot be distinguished from those achievable by conventional breeding techniques.“The regulator is critical to gaining the confidence of both the public and the science sector, and ensuring that the whole regulatory system, not just the legislation, is fully fit for purpose,” the government said in a briefing document.
Setting out the economic benefits, the government said that New Zealand’s biotechnology sector generated $2.7 billion in revenue during 2020. “We are not benefiting from the potential tech-related research, innovation and applications that can be done safely,” The government is encouraging the public to share its thoughts on the decision.
The European Union looks set to relax regulation around certain gene edited food, with an opinion from the European Food Safety Agency concluding that the European Commission’s criteria for relaxing rules in this area are ‘scientifically justified.’
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