Twenty years after the first genetically modified crops (GM) were planted in New Zealand, the fight over so called "Frankenstein food" is still raging.
GM crop trials have been allowed since 1988 but it was not until the moratorium was lifted in 2003, amid loud protest, that applications could be made to grow GM plants commercially.
But so-far no New Zealand companies have gone down that path.
This is partly due to the fact that many of the GM crops that have shown success, such as cotton, canola and soy, are not traditionally grown in New Zealand.
Also, the filing an application to begin growing commercially would cost upwards of $30,000 and that would be a big cost to recover given the small scale of crops grown in New Zealand.
Scientists who have backed the technology say the country have made little progress in two decades.
Plant geneticist Tony Conner was getting ready to plant the first genetically modified trial crops in the Southern Hemisphere during the 1980s but two decades later he says the lack of progress is frustrating.
"Every year more than four times the total land area of New Zealand is now grown in GM crops around the world and if anything the system in New Zealand is we've regressed. It's become more difficult to do field trials," he says.
But environmental groups continue to say there is still not enough proof that GM is safe.
"We actually don't know what the long term effects of GE (genetic engineering) will be in the environment. So we're actually experimenting by going ahead and doing it within the environment," says Bunny McDiarmid, Greenpeace New Zealand.
Currently having guaranteed GE-free produce is a marketing point for New Zealand
"New Zealand has a very powerful image offshore of this clean green image and that's crucial to the way we market organic products and it's crucial to the way we market our conventional products," says Jon Tanner, Organics New Zealand.
But Conner says the cautious approach could actually end up limiting our agriculture industry.
"We're heavily reliant on overseas companies for our new innovative cultivars for the New Zealand market and it just bothers me that in time, in 10-15 years time, we could be well left with yesterdays' cultivars," says Conner.
