Soil & Health Optimistic About Kedgley's Bill

Soil & Health Association of New Zealand (Est. 1941)

12-4-06

Soil & Health is optimistic that Sue Kedgley's Consumers Right to Know (Food Information) Bill drawn last week from the Parliamentary ballot will answer many of Soil & Health's food labelling concerns.

This is an exciting Bill for Soil & Health, according to spokesperson Steffan Browning. Our hope now is that an open multi-party approach will be taken to give NZ food consumers real choice.

The Bill is about full GE food labelling, GE animal feed labelling, GE traceability in the food chain, Country of Origin labelling, labelling for method of production for eggs and seafood, and full public access to government information on residues of pesticides and other chemicals in foods.
All are issues of concern and subjects of campaigns by Soil & Health.

As an example, 75% of New Zealanders have said that they don't want GE food production. Most New Zealanders don't want to eat GE food either, and clear labelling is needed. The Green Party surveyed 156 foods likely to contain GE and found zero with labels expressing any level of GE.
This is just plain unfair to the majority of New Zealanders that don't want a bar of GE.
My own experience in Europe was of clear labelling that allowed free choice, said Browning, why not here?

For consumers that don't want to eat battery hen produced eggs, this bill will make it easy to find eggs of their choice.
It is good to see some market led moves already with egg labelling, but clearly this bill is needed to simplify choice.

Consumers wanting to avoid growth hormone and antibiotic laced meat deserve to be able to identify products from the 27,000 tonnes of pork imported into New Zealand last year.

Pesticide residue information is often fudged and the full access provided by The Consumers Right To Know Bill, for residue information, cannot come soon enough for Soil & Health, said Steffan Browning

ENDS

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