We analysed 30 years of debate on genetic modification. This is what’s been missing

A quarter-century ago, genetic modification stood as one of the most contentious political and environmental issues in New Zealand.

Debate around the technology produced a high-profile royal commission of inquiry, a 20,000-strong protest march through central Auckland and the politically explosive “Corngate” controversy, in which the government was accused of covering up the possible planting of GM corn.

Today, GM has advanced dramatically, but the arguments surrounding it remain remarkably familiar.

A bill introduced by the National-led government to modernise the regulation of genetic technologies drew more than 15,000 submissions last year.

Its progress stalled after coalition partner New Zealand First withdrew its support, citing inadequate safeguards and potential export risks, pushing any further action beyond the election.

With long-standing calls for reform unlikely to be answered anytime soon, we analysed more than 1,600 texts – mostly media articles – to trace how GM public debate has evolved over the past three decades.

We found some arguments have dominated the debate while others have been surprisingly absent, particularly cultural and ethical questions.

The rise, fall and return of economic arguments

At the height of the GM debate in the 1990s and early 2000s, supporters emphasised its potential economic benefits and the costs of “missing out”.

Critics, meanwhile, warned GM could threaten New Zealand’s “clean, green” image and harm trade. Those concerns remained prominent in subsequent decades, perhaps because economic arguments were among the few criticisms taken seriously by GM supporters.

But during the 2010s, we found supporters largely moved away from economic arguments. Where economics was mentioned at all, it tended to be one item towards the end of a longer list of potential benefits.

Instead, arguments in favour of GM increasingly focused on environmental benefits – particularly tackling climate change and controlling pests – as well as applications in medicine and poverty alleviation.

One reason may be that newer technologies such as CRISPR, which allows scientists to more precisely edit DNA, have opened up applications beyond agriculture. Another may be a desire to distance GM from concerns about corporate influence that dominated debate in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Then, from 2023, the debate came full circle. Economic arguments returned to the centre of the case for GM reform, in line with the government’s wider emphasis on economic growth.

Environmental and social benefits have remained prominent too. As the arguments for GM have expanded to cover an increasingly wide range of potential benefits, those against it have become narrower, concentrating heavily on economic risks.

Why a broader conversation is needed

Economics is not the only recurring feature of the GM debate. Over the past three decades, both sides have offered competing claims about what the science says and how much risk GM poses.

But other important questions have received far less attention, including Māori values and rights.

While these were occasionally raised by GM critics in earlier decades, we found Māori perspectives were rarely taken seriously by supporters. Our data suggests this may now be beginning to change.

The ethical and moral implications of GM have likewise received relatively little attention in recent years.

Supporters increasingly argue it would be “immoral” not to use GM because of its potential social and environmental benefits. But these arguments are generally made without much deeper discussion of the ethical questions involved.

Critics have been more likely to raise ethical concerns over the years, but even they rarely dwell on them. We found this even in cases where ethics might have been expected to take centre stage, such as the disbandment of the Bioethics Council in 2009.

Discussion of GM regulation has also tended to be narrow. Particularly since the late 2000s, existing rules have largely been presented as either adequate or too restrictive.

Framing regulation simply as a question of “more” or “less” leaves little room to consider why particular decisions should be made, how they should be made, and who should have a say.

Similarly, our analysis – and the current stalemate over National’s Gene Technology Bill – points to the problems with placing too much focus on economic considerations. The result can be a debate reduced to competing technical claims and polarised arguments about whether GM itself is simply good or bad.

Our research suggests New Zealand needs a much wider conversation – particularly one that gives greater attention to the cultural and ethical questions that have too often been missing.