Browning Steffan: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 29 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:404. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):Congratulations to you Mr Assistant Speaker Mallard and to the others in the House on their various roles. This Government has clearly stated it wants to grow primary production and it has even announced since the election $3 million - plus for new forage development. Is this money for genuinely sustainable production aimed at being genuinely resilient in the face of climate change though? Is it for genuinely sustainable farming systems or is it more of the unsustainable type that PGG Wrightson and Dupont are developing using Primary Growth Partnership money from the Government in its last round of funding? They are developing for their Chinese master Agria which is the dominant owner of PGG Wrightson Seeds and wants to rival international GE giant Monsanto in the seed world.Unfortunately some farming leaders and agriculture companies in New Zealand seem hell-bent on maintaining a slide into the lowest commodity level of production moving away from climate change resilience as they go and threatening both our marketing reputation and the health and safety of stock and consumers alike. The latest casualties from this unsustainable kind of farming are the several hundred stock mainly dairy cows that became sick and even died after consuming herbicide-tolerant forage brassicas particularly swedes from PGG Wrightson Seeds Cleancrop Brassica System. This system relies on multiple herbicide and penetrant applications seed treated with insecticide and fungicides heavy fertiliser use and insecticide sprays thrown in as well. The stock are eating a cocktail of chemicals with the swedes and we consumers then eat the dairy products and the meat from them.The particular herbicide that that system is designed around has proprietary rights. You and I cannot just go to buy the seed. It is specially licensed and farmers have to sign up to certain things for it. It is called Telar. It is Dupont’s chlorsulfuron herbicide. It is banned in China or about to be banned—it is being phased out over this year. We have had problem after problem with contaminated dairy products but this Government through Primary Growth Partnership funding is putting money into forage development that goes down these sorts of paths. How stupid is that?We need genuine sustainable production in this country not more of the unsustainable production that our customers ourselves and certainly our stock will not be happy about. We want good quality safe food. The Greens stand for a smarter greener fairer economy using genuinely resilient production systems.It is no secret that the Federated Farmers President William Rolleston as an ex-Life Sciences Network spokesperson wants to see GE in New Zealand. He wants to see it in farming. Recently—in fact it was in April—he came back from Argentina squawking about being in the middle of a great big crop of soy there and it was somehow wonderful. There is nothing wonderful about it. It had the same problems that we are talking about. People are getting sick there from being associated with it. Then we have had Ian Mackenzie Federated Farmers’ head of grain and seed supporting it. More recently Southland president of Federated Farmers Russell MacPherson came back from being shown by Monsanto around its wonderful stuff. He came back chortling about their no-till system. It is the same system that was killing his cows in his own region in Southland.We need far far better systems and we have got them. We need to be moving in a different direction. I have the role of agriculture spokesperson for the Greens and I will certainly be aiming to hold this Government accountable on that area. I will be promoting organic biological farming systems that give farmers more profit leave our land in a way that we can be proud of and make our products something that we can be proud to market. Thank you.