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Story: Market gardens and production nurseries

Dr Tony Conner and GM potato

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Dr Tony Conner and GM potato

Since 2003 New Zealand has maintained a strict moratorium on the commercial production of genetically modified (GM) organisms, although scientific research on GM plants, animals and micro-organisms is permitted under stringent conditions. Dr Tony Conner of Crop and Food Research has developed GM potatoes with increased resistance to bacterial rots and the potato-tuber moth. Anti-GM campaigners have sabotaged field and laboratory trials of his GM potatoes on at least two occasions.

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Crop and Food Research

by Robert Lamberts

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How to cite this page

Maggy Wassilieff, Market gardens and production nurseries – Industry structure, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/20030/dr-tony-conner-and-gm-potato (accessed 27 June 2026).

Story by Maggy Wassilieff, published 1 March 2009.