AgResearch has dropped plans to make genetically modified buffalo, pigs, llamas, alpacas, horses and deer after an environmental watchdog said the proposals were so broad it was impossible to weigh up the risks.

On Monday, ERMA - the Environmental Risk Management Authority – rejected AgResearch’s request  to  extend its GM animal programmes.

AgResearch submitted four new wide-ranging applications to ERMA.

The proposed trials were for an unlimited time and there was no proposed location specified.

But ERMA says  the exceptionally large range of genetic modifications, techniques and traits proposed, means it’s not possible to properly assess their effects as required by the law.

Applied biotechnologies general manager Dr.  Jimmy Suttie says the report is far from a setback, and in fact proves the robustness of New Zealand’s GM regulation.

 But GE Free New Zealand’s Claire Bleakley says while the latest decision is good news, it matters little as AgResearch’s GE work, as a proposal approved last month grants it an almost identical mandate.

Meanwhile, the Green Party is calling for an urgent independent inquiry into animal welfare and genetic engineering trials  at AgResearch’s facility Ruakura, after revelations about calves whose ovaries grew so large they ruptured  and killed the animals.

Green MP Sue Kedgley will propose the idea to the parliamentary select committee on education and science.