The passing of the Organic Products and Production Act 2023 (Organic Act) has been a ten-year expedition of multiple trials, tribulations, twists, and turns that tested the motivations and determination of all involved.
Since the 1980s, the organic sector has sought a government policy to protect and grow organic. In 1999, we published (Organic NZ Nov/Dec 1999) our preferred future that required:
…government regulation standards, for both domestic and export markets, and support policy that safeguarded organic e.g. spray drift legislation.
Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ) was created in 2006 as a united force representing the organic sector (Soil & Health NZ is one of their founding members). Their core purpose is to ‘grow and develop organic’ and they identified regulation and national standards were essential to do this. But by 2012, OANZ’s initial funding had run out and the organisation had nearly collapsed.
The slow, incremental task of rebuilding began.
The 2012 Organic Market Report was launched in Parliament on 6 March 2013, unsupported by the National-led government, but attended by opposition MPs, Green Party member, Steffan Browning, and Labour’s Damien O’Connor. (O’Connor would, in 2018, be the Minister of Primary Industries and introduce the Organic Bill to Parliament.)
In 2013, a front-page article in raised awareness of the need for regulation by highlighting the proliferation of ‘Dodgy ‘organic’ Labels’ and that other top organic
