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Ag science just ain’t sexy enough Peter Griffin Jun 22

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Here’s the looming problem for New Zealand – the scientific institutions that come up with innovations to keep our primary sector industries productive and contributing huge amounts to GDP are failing to attract young kiwi talent to replace the old-timers that are retiring.

Hence we have, a few days after Fieldays, the following headline in Rural News:

Source: Rural News

Source: Rural News

It’s an interesting issue I’ve been mulling as I prepare to embark on a tour around the country as part of the Royal Society’s Emerging Researchers workshops, which have so far attracted nearly 1000 participants! The workshops are designed to give PhD and post doctoral researchers tips on navigating science funding, getting a job, communicating their science and dealing with immigration requirements. As I found out last year, the latter issue is a very important one for a good deal of the people who attend the workshops as many of them are foreigners who have come to New Zealand to study, and hopefully gain residency and a job in New Zealand.

Last year, the workshops included representatives from large agricultural science players like Fonterra, Gallagher and Fonterra, who explained how hot the competition is for the jobs they offer emerging researchers – and how they are increasingly casting the net worldwide to look for new recruits. Part of the reason for that is there’s a limited pool of young researchers in New Zealand pursuing agricultural science. That despite our biggest-earning industries being agriculture-related. So what’s the problem? According to the report in Rural News (not online) which quotes Agricultural and Horticultural Science Institute president Jon Hickford, it could largely be one of perception:

There is a perception of mud and gumboots as opposed to medical researchers saving the world, yet our role is to produce more and better food. Somehow there is the perception that food production is ‘dirty’ and not a noble cause which is weird.

Part of it also comes down to money – agricultural scientists just don’t earn the big bucks…

Rural News: Young people are aware that the best the average senior scientist with a PhD can hope for is a salary of around $100,000, whereas someone with a BA can earn a lot more as a policy analyst in Wellington.

The Government is aware of the problem – statistics released to Rural News by the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology which are discussed but now published apparently show that in three Crown research institutes – Agresearch, Plant & Food and Scion, a “high proportion” of scientists are in their 50s and 60s. The answer? According to RS&T Minister Dr Wayne Mapp the shake-up of the CRIs and the science system currently underway will help. But what of the perception problem? How do you get young people excited about pursuing agricultural science. Or will we increasingly just import our ag sciences from the rest of the world?

When is an experiment a ‘bungled’ experiment? Peter Griffin May 03

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I wasn’t in the sharpest frame of mind on Saturday morning after a big night on the town in Auckland with some journalist friends the previous night.

However I couldn’t help but notice the headline screaming out from the front page of the New Zealand Herald frontpage as I passed an inner-city dairy.

The headline was in green – a first for the New Zealand Herald as far as I know. It came with the following shocking sub heading and standfirst:

Source: New Zealand Herald

Source: New Zealand Herald

Hangover forgotten, I promptly bought a copy of the Herald and devoured the front page story, which indeed was a good scoop for environment reporter Eloise Gibson, who received some interesting material from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry under the Official Information Act about genetic modification experiments Agresearch is carrying out. These transgenic experiments have already received a lot of public attention and involve putting human genetic material into cow cells to produce calves that have some human genetic traits.

As Gibson points out:

The scientists hoped that the genetic code, a human follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), would enable the cows that were produced to produce milk containing compounds that could be used as a human fertility treatment.

Under permits issued by the Environmental Risk Management Authority last month, AgResearch can put human genes into goats, sheep and cows for 20 years to see if the animals produce human proteins in their milk.

The proteins could eventually be used to treat human disorders.

Those couple of paragraphs sum up well the aims of the research. They come after an explanation of how three calves involved in a “bungled  experiment” at Agresearch’s Ruakura facility died after developing abnormally large ovaries.  The details are unpleasant – no one likes to hear about animals suffering and dying and the story will no doubt infuriate campaigners against animal testing.

Where’s the bungle here?

But what about the experiment was “bungled” or as One News put it on Saturday night, “botched”?

The Herald story goes on to reveal that the calves reared by Agresearch were, in the opinion of a MAF investigator “better cared for by vets at Ruakura than they would be on a standard dairy farm”. The state of the calves was reported to Agresearch’s animal ethics committee which told the company to monitor the calves. Agresearch was open with MAF about the problems the calves had developed. Agriculture Minister David Carter even got involved on hearing of the death of the calves and asked for information but was “satisfied with AgResearch’s response”.

So we have a case of cows dying in the course of genetic modification research, a result which scientists probably didn’t predict and were a bit puzzled by. But isn’t that the whole idea of an experiment? To test in a contained environment the effect of something that hasn’t been tried before. Isn’t that how numerous pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs and healthcare treatments have been tested in preparation for human consumption? How many lab rats, mice, dogs and pigs have died in the testing of the shampoo we use, the drugs we take, the food and drink we consume?

Were those deaths the result of bungled experiments? Possibly. But animals die in the course of animal testing. As Jim Suttie points out in the Herald article – such an occurrence is not a “big deal” and in fact is a foreseen outcome of some experiments. It sounds callous, but on the cutting edge of science, the whole idea is to find out what can and will go wrong in animals so it doesn’t go wrong in us.

Botched beat up?

There’s a valid story in the fact that calves died in the course of a GM experiment. It indeed raises again the vexed issue of animal testing and what society’s tolerance is for experimenting on animals.

Last month we saw both perspectives in this debate when animal testing opponents picketed the NZBIO conference in Auckland while inside, John Forman of the New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders argued passionately for  more animal testing to help tackle debilitating treat human disorders. But just because animals die in an experiment doesn’t mean that experiment was botched by the scientists involved. In fact, I haven’t seen anything in news reports to suggest the experiment was handled inappropriately or unprofessionally.

So did this story really deserve its front page lead status and unique green headline screaming “GM” in 72 point bold?

I don’t think so.

Crazy science letter of the week part 3 Peter Griffin Apr 19

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This one, from today’s Taranaki Daily News, isn’t so much about science as animal welfare and isn’t so much crazy as it is eccentric. But I thought it was fantastic and needed to be shared with Sciblogs readers…

Source: Taranaki Daily News

Source: Taranaki Daily News

GM ruling quashed in Court of Appeal – now what? Peter Griffin Mar 29

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The journal Nature features a report from Sydney-based New Zealander Branwen Morgan, looking at the implications of the New Zealand Court of Appeal move to quash an earlier High Court decision that saw Agresearch applications to undertake genetic modification research thrown out.

I blogged on the Court of Appeal case in February heading the article: Will Agresearch’s Court of Appeal bid pay off? The decision handed down last week (see the paper below) shows it clearly did pay off. It was obvious during the Court of Appeal hearing that the argument GE Free NZ had earlier scored a High Court win on the back of, was fundamentally flawed.

GE Free NZ was essentially saying that Agresearch’s applications to undertake GM research involving a range of different species were so generic and broad-ranging in scope that they shouldn’t even have been considered by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA). That would mean that on receiving an application, ERMA would be required to rule straight away whether an application could be considered, effectively vetting applications before the substance of them would have the scientific ruler run over them.

It is like throwing out a submission to a poetry competition before it can be read because the entry  doesn’t appear to have enough stanzas.

It is an argument that the Court of Appeal judges saw little merit in. They concluded:

We accept that there is a real issue as to whether the generic nature of the applications means that they fail to comply with what appear to be relatively specific requirements in s 40(2). However, we also accept the submission made on behalf of
both AgResearch and ERMA that the determination of that issue is a matter requiring a degree of scientific knowledge and the application of that knowledge to the case at hand in circumstances where it will not be readily apparent to ERMA at
the time it accepts the application, and which will be difficult for a Court to evaluate in judicial review.

In our view, the essentially mechanical decision made by ERMA to accept and register the applications should be allowed to stand. ERMA should continue its process of assessment of the applications. We therefore allow the appeal and quash the orders
made in the High Court setting aside ERMA’s decision to accept the applications and directing ERMA to take no further steps towards hearing and asserting the applications.

The decision means ERMA is free to consider applications in the way it has been doing so – if the basic “mechanical” processes of lodging the applications are completed on the right forms with the right boxes ticked, ERMA will be obliged to look in further detail at an application. That sounds like common sense as lets face it, those applying to ERMA are generally organisations that have done their homework and are serious about undertaking serious research here. Bogus applications from crazy scientists therefore are likely to be spiked soon after being received even if they do make it onto the desk of whoever at ERMA is tasked with processing the applications.

So Agresearch is pretty much back where it was when the applications were first lodged in late 2008 and ERMA has the task of considering those four applications again. The outcome is as uncertain as it was first time around.  Agresearch is  no doubt frustrated about the delay the court action has caused. The Nature article certainly points to this:

Despite the recent Court of Appeal ruling in AgResearch’s favour, Barry Scott, head of the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and former ERMA board member, says these sorts of legal challenges can stifle business development. Jimmy Suttie, science and technology general manager for AgResearch’s applied biotechnologies group, acknowledges this possibility. “The impact is twofold: it makes NZ companies themselves reluctant to invest and, because of the way the international media may view the actions of GE Free NZ, it can suggest that the anti-GM attitude in New Zealand is more extreme than it really is,” he says.

GE Free NZ is making noises about a Supreme Court bid to have the decision reversed. Surely it would be more productive to leave ERMA to actually look at the substance of the applications and decide for itself whether the applications are too general and vague in nature and even ask for more information if necessary? Isn’t that what the role of a regulator should be?

Why was CNN in Palmerston North? Methane! Peter Griffin Mar 03

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It’s a rare event that brings a CNN news crew to New Zealand – an America’s Cup campaign or a Lord of the Rings launch usually.

Or in this case a disrupted flight schedule which prevented the crew from heading to its intended destination – Chile. So the newly formed Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre was lucky enough to have CNN reporter Dan Rivers and crew present for its big launch in Palmerston North today.

The presence of the global news broadcaster was quite appropriate given that the centre’s work will feed into international efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. The Global Research Alliance launched at Copenhagen was, said Prime Minister John Key today at the launch, one of the few highlights of the COP15 conference with 20 countries signing up to work together on agricultural emissions.

New Zealand has pledged $45 million towards the initiative and research programmes coordinated through the AGGRC will be one of the key New Zealand contributions to the alliance.

Interestingly, John Key reiterated today that technological breakthroughs that the Global Research Alliance might come up with will be given to developing countries so they too can take advantage of them.

The AGGRC is headed by Dr Harry Clark, formerly an Agresearch scientist who will coordinate research programmes with partners that include Agresearch, DairyNZ, Landcare Research, Lincoln University, Massey University, NIWA, Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium, Plant & Food Research and Scion.

Harry Clark has had to move fast to pull the centre together – the sods of grass outside the centre’s modest head office on the Massey campus were laid just last week. Effectively, all the research will be done in the labs it is currently carried out in around the country. What will be important is the additional funding available for research – $5 million of direct government funding each year for the next 10 years. No details of what projects will be funded have yet been released, but you can expect some of the projects outlined here will be getting a funding top-up.

The PM launches the AGGRC in front of various suits and a CNN crew

The PM launches the AGGRC in front of various suits and a CNN crew

GM ryegrass – at least 7 years away from release Peter Griffin Mar 02

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The Royal Society’s dispassionate summary of the potential benefits and risks of planting crops of GM forage for farm animals to feed on makes for interesting reading, thought its lack of recommendations on a way forward for GM in New Zealand may leave you wondering what the message from science actually is.

At the Science Media Centre we held a briefing today for journalists, featuring three of the co-authors of the paper. You can listen back to their presentations and the Q&A with journalists at the end here. Bottom line is that the scientists believe that after 10 years of intensive farming of GM crops around the world – 143 million hectares of GM crops were planted last year alone – the overwhelming scientific evidence suggests that genetically modified crops are safe to grow and consume. But that hasn’t really seen industry and public perception of genetically modified organisms shift dramatically in favour of the technology being used.

Source: Pastoral Genomics

Source: Pastoral Genomics

As Lincoln University’s Caroline Saunders pointed out in her presentation, opposition to GM at an industry level is on the increase in the US and the European Union where the high-value premium sectors of the market are anti-GM, because animal meat reared on GM crops often sells for less. As an example given by Professor Saunders, she points to GM corn-fed beef going for eight per cent less than its non-GM equivalent.

Research also suggests that what consumers are willing to accept when it comes to GM is complex – if GM traits make food healthier or reduce the impact on the environment they are more accepting of it than if GM traits reduce prices. Some New Zealand research referenced by Professor Saunders suggests a fairly high level of rejection (40 – 45 per cent of those surveyed) of products with beneficial GM traits, say butter with less cholesterol or insect resistant sweetcorn. As such, whatever justifications scientists can put forward for genetically modified crops, in this case, GM forage crops, won’t necessarily hugely influence whether consumers are accepting of it.

There was much discussion in the briefing of the difference between cisgenic and transgenic modification, which guest blogger Jack Heinneman recently examined in a series on Sciblogs. Pastoral Genomics’ Dr Michael Dunbier outlined the reasons for pursuing research into GM forage crops (see his presentation below). One striking image he put up on his slide shows GM ryegrass engineered to be drought resistant. The plants are visibly much better off that those unmodified plants. But if many scientists are keen to get moving here on GM crops most are realistic that due to the issues mentioned above, a commercial release of a GM forage crop which could become the basis of feed for millions of cows and sheep, is still some way off. In Dr Dunbier’s estimation, the earliest commercialisation could be in 2017 – 2018.

An NZPA report on the briefing.

US to NZ: Get real about GM crops Peter Griffin Jan 29

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It was fairly predictable that Dr Nina Fedoroff’s comments about genetic modification during her visit to New Zealand this week would raise the hackles of anti-GM group GE Free NZ.

Nina Fedoroff - GM advocate

Nina Fedoroff - GM advocate

It was also ironic that Fedoroff, Hillary Clinton’s science and technology advisor, arrived just as GE Free New Zealand went back to court where Crown research institute AgResearch was seeking to overturn a decision that last year saw its applications to undertake GM research across a range of species withdrawn.

Fedoroff is an expert in plant genetics, author of a book on genetic modification and an unabashed advocate of the technology. This New York Times piece gives Federoff’s take on GM, which can be summed up with this quote from her:

“There’s almost no food that isn’t genetically modified. Genetic modification is the basis of all evolution.

“Things change because our planet is subjected to a lot of radiation, which causes DNA damage, which gets repaired, but results in mutations, which create a ready mixture of plants that people can choose from to improve agriculture.

“In the last century, as we learned more about genes, we were able to devise ways of accelerating evolution.

“So a lot of modern plant strains were created by applying chemicals or radiation to cause mutations that improved the crop. That’s how plant breeding was done in the 20th century. The paradox is that now that we’ve invented techniques that introduce just one gene without disturbing the rest, some people think that’s terrible.”

Fedoroff’s presentation Rethinking Agriculture in a Changing Climate (see  a version of it below – minus the video clips) formed the basis of her public lecture at the University of Auckland on Wednesday and also forms the bones of her pro-GM justifications, which focus on food security and the challenges faced by the world of feeding more people using less arable land.

It is the “accelerating evolution” using genetic modification that has been such a touchy subject in New Zealand, and while it wasn’t top of the agenda as Fedoroff met some of the country’s top scientists in a series of high-level discussions, her message will certainly be getting sympathetic nods from scientists she has met this week who are extremely limited in the GM research they can do and who have been unable to get a commercial release of a GMO of any kind in New Zealand, after decades of effort. AgResearch chief executive Andrew West went as far this week as to suggest scientists have a moral obligation to pursue GM technology.

“If genetic modification can create more food from fewer inputs, I think we have a moral obligation to use it. With our current product mix, New Zealand can feed 17 million people,” Dr West said.

Fedoroff is well aware of the antipathy to GM in New Zealand. But she believes public sentiment on GM may shift as rising demand puts pressure on food prices. She told the Herald:

“Stay tuned … dug-in positions can change quite rapidly.”

Where are all the Kiwis at Copenhagen? Peter Griffin Dec 12

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UPDATE: The Sunday Star Times ran a story today quoting New Zealand businesses that are disappointed they have been excluded from the official New Zealand delegation. Well that’s too bad, but why aren’t these companies involved in their own right in the discussions rather than depending on the Government to get them a seat at the table?

Every day at the Science Media Centre during COP15 we compile an alert for New Zealand journalists on the ground in Copenhagen and back here in New Zealand flagging some press conferences and events that may be be newsworthy.

Tonight, for instance, an interesting-looking session will examine the “unsustainable” consumption of meat in industrialised countries – and what governments should do about it. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency is running that session.

Every day we do a search of the programme PDFs for reference to New Zealand and so far those searches have come up with nothing. Australia on the other hand, has been involved in numerous sessions from both a scientific and policy point of view.

So what’s the deal? We knew virtually no New Zealand scientists would be going to Copenhagen because we asked them. As far as the CRIs, dairy sector,  NGOs, companies involved in renewable energy and other organisations with an interest in the issue are concerned – we expected to see their names pop up on the programme in some capacity.

But nothing, nada, zip. Environment Minister Nick Smith gets a late night session sometime between 9pm and midnight on December 16. He’ll be the warm up act for the environment minister for the Czech Republic, Mr. Jan Dusík, who represents a country that has for its head of state, Václav Klaus, one of the most vocal critics of the idea of man-made global warming.

You’d think with reports being issued and sessions being run on everything from foodmiles and farming, to forestry and agricultural emissions, some New Zealand agency or company would be taking to the podium to contribute to the discussion. The programme however is strangely devoid of New Zealand input. We often pride ourselves for being over-represented in worthwhile global endeavours. It seems when it comes to this one, everyone decided to stay at home…

Out to lunch credit: Nigel Kerby AusSMC

Out to lunch... credit: Nigel Kerby AusSMC

GM probe: Minor transgressions…major implications Peter Griffin Dec 01

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It hasn’t been a great year for New Zealand’s genetic modification research efforts, even if viewed from a purely “PR” point of view.

Last December, the anti-GM environmental group the Soil & Health Association of New Zealand had a poke around Crop & Food’s GM brassica trial going on at the company’s campus at Lincoln near Christchurch and found a flowering kale plant where it shouldn’t have been. As a result of the ensuing investigation, the 10 year trial of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and forage kale was abandoned in February, around 2 years into its consent period. A lot of investment that ultimately came from us the tax payers, came to nothing.

Soil & Health’s Steffan Browning later told me the discovery was a bit of a fluke, but it showed that an unofficial, self-appointed watchdog was studying GM trials in New Zealand like a hawk, and quite rightly pointing out where containment wasn’t 100 per cent airtight.

Still it was a set-back for the scientific community’s efforts to progress GM research here. The perception is that the New Zealand public is incredibly wary of GM and a determined group of activists including Browning and his comrade-in-arms, Claire Bleakley of GE Free NZ, are determined to prevent the commercial release of GM organisms.

It means that any minor transgression in GM research is amplified by these groups, adding to the perception that GM is something we need to keep a lid on. So a second probe by MAF Biosecurity into a GM plant breach at Lincoln is pretty worrying news for scientists working in the field.

What third party?

On the face of it, this breach looks less serious – scientists approached by the Science Media Centre said the risk of these self-pollinating plants spreading quickly over large distances is low. But seedlings discovered by Plant & Food staff and tested by MAF were indeed found to have genetically modified “constructs”. That means they shouldn’t have been there.

Plant & Food’s chief executive Peter Landon-Lane told The Press:

“It is unclear how these seedlings came to be outside the facility as they do not match to any work Plant & Food Research has done. There is evidence suggesting they have come from a third party.”

So where did they come from? The arabidopsis plants analysed by MAF are very commonly used in genetic studies – a colleague at the SMC was working with them at university while completing her microbiology degree, so perhaps they originated from studies undertaken by researchers at Lincoln University, which shares a campus with Plant & Food.

There are other research campuses in the area, but its unlikely they are involved in GM research involving these types of plants.

Close the glasshouse door!

If the plants definitely do contain GM constructs, as subsequent testing will confirm, it will be important,  for the integrity of containment programmes underway at research institutions based at Lincoln and the rest of the country, to find out exactly where they came from and how they came to be growing outside of a containment facility.

A lot of containment facilities used in GM trials here and abroad are no more than glasshouses – the photo below is of a glasshouse at the John Innes Centre in the UK I visited earlier in the year where scientists are splicing genes from the snapdragon flower into tomatoes. Taking a tomato or some tomato seeds out of the glasshouse, we were told, would have constituted a breach of the rules and caused all sorts of hassle for the researchers, but overall, the approach to containment was fairly common sense. We could have carried material out on our shoes but the risk from that was obviously deemed low.

New Zealand faces stricter containment rules than other countries when it comes to GM trials. Given the intense scrutiny of the current trials underway here by environmental groups its paramount that the organisations involved uphold these high standards. If they don’t they face more serious knockbacks on the road to commercialising their research.

john innes glasshouse