Report ‘biased, inaccurate’

Press, 1 July 1983, Page 16

Report ‘biased, inaccurate’

An expert witness for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in the 1982 High Court case over potato cyst nematode, Professor W. C. Clark, of the University of Canterbury, has complained about the treatment of the subject in “The Press” last Friday. Professor Clark, who was not mentioned in the article, has complained that it was a biased and factually inaccurate account from disgruntled litigants and “experts” who stated under oath that they had no expertise “in these matters.” “Dr Smith stated he had no training or experience in P.C.N. work,” said Professor Clark. “Dr Bedi described himself to the court as a geneticist and denied being a nematologist, but these are the experts on whom your report relies.

“The M.A.F. has denied some growers the right to sell seed potatoes from infected ground to other potato growers. No commercial grower would wish to buy suspect seed that could transfer P.C.N. to his land and put him out of potato growing. “For the Ministry to have failed to act to protect the table potato growers would have been criminal negligence. “P.C.N. was found in the Malvern district and, given that for many years there was free movement of soil contaminated machinery and vehicles between potato growing areas in Marshlands and Malvern and indiscriminate use of secondhand potato sacks it} both districts and that- pig

potatoes from Marshlands were fed to sheep in Malvern, there is no mystery about how the infection may have spread. “Yarrow cyst nematode is a red herring. “There is no evidence even suggestive of its presence in the Southern Hemisphere, let alone in Canter-

bury, where much yarrow infested soil has been examined. “As the senior nematologist in New Zealand, and one without commitment to either M.A.F. or D.5.1.R., it is important that I speak against the partial account of this matter that was published,” he said.