www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has temporarily suspended
replanting of land on the East Coast where genetically engineered sweetcorn
seed was destroyed, December 2006.

While a Wairoa crop inadvertently planted with GE seed was being harrowed,
a MAF official found a small patch of seed that had only just germinated.

The rest of the three-week-old planting was 3m high.

"We don't know why this has happened and today are wandering around the
remaining areas that would be replanted to make sure there is no late
germination," MAF spokesman Brett Sangster said.

After test showed 1807kg of sweetcorn seed planted on 258.4ha of Hawke's Bay
and Gisborne farms contained illicit GE seed, MAF ordered the crops to be
harrowed, with the growing plants chopped and buried.

Some of the GE sweetcorn was harrowed last week and the rest of the crops
were to be destroyed over the next two weeks, once they reached the stage
that all seeds had germinated. Some farmers have said Christmas may be the
latest that affected fields could be economically re-planted with sweetcorn
for the processing sector.

About 80 per cent of the 57 hectares of affected land in Gisborne was to be
replanted while about 20 per cent of 201 ha in Hawke's Bay was to be
replanted.

Syngenta, the American seed company that supplied the seed, has agreed to
compensate farmers for any costs involved in the GE contaminated seed.

www.checkbiotech.org

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