The voices of Sir Peter Elworthy and the Sustainability Council have added weight to the movement to keep New Zealand GE-Free, Green Party Agriculture spokesperson Ian Ewen-Street said today.

"Sir Peter has lead the farming community for many years, and has put his hand up to say what the majority of individual farmers have been thinking for a long time - that releasing GE organisms could be devastating for our agricultural industry and trade."

Mr Ewen-Street said the Labour Party must listen to what the Sustainability Council is saying - that the safe approach is to extend the moratorium for at least another five years.

"It's time Labour faced the fact that their entrenched position on automatically lifting the moratorium on commercial release of genetically engineered organisms is unreasonable and out of touch with the majority of New Zealanders, including farmers.

"This is a major marketing issue for New Zealand agriculture, because consumers will not only choose not to buy GE food products, they will go out of their way to avoid them.

"Releasing GE organisms has the potential to seriously damage our agricultural industry, and it's great to see distinguished New Zealanders speaking out to extend to moratorium."

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