This award recognises someone working in an inspiring leadership role in the New Zealand organics/kai atua sector with under five years of experience.
The Criteria
Nominations for this category have to be:
Someone who has been working in a leadership role in the New Zealand organic sector for under five years.
Be able to demonstrate how they are helping to mitigate climate change within their work.
Interacting and engaging with relevant communities, including tangata whenua to build a just society.
Working to future-proof and lead a financially viable organisation.
The finalists…
Alex Morrissey, Founder of Little Farms https://wearelittlefarms.com/ Alex champions organic farming, environmental sustainability, and community equity. She connects local organic growers, reduces food miles, and empowers communities through education and accessible produce. Alex’s work embodies a commitment to a healthier, fairer society.
Jamie Tucker, Founding farmer at Laughing Pukeko and programme coordinator at AsureQuality https://laughingpukeko.co.nz/ Jamie established the BHU market garden and is now a Program Coordinator at AsureQuality, focusing on freshwater. She’s an advocate for organics, volunteering at OANZ and engaging with Eat NZ as a 2022/23 Kaitiaki. Her commitment to sustainable agriculture and community involvement reflects her passion and dedication.
Saskia, Sheldon and Elle, Vagabond Veg https://www.vagabondvege.nz/ Saskia, Elle and Sheldon are small scale farmers focused on growing with ecologically and socially centered practice. Embarking on the Hua Parakore journey and co-creating local food systems that work for farmers, community and our earth.
Each vote you make gives you one entry into the draw to win one of two $50 Kings Seeds Vouchers. Voting closes on 2 May, the winners of the seeds will be notified shortly after.
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-12-18 16:22:472023-12-18 16:22:47OrganicNZ Emerging Leader of the Year Award
Summer is such a waiting and watching period. All the hard work of spring is about to
come to fruition – if we protect and nurture our precious plants and their ground crew.
Diana Noonan shares her experience of growing food organically and reminds us, as
we tinker in the garden, to enjoy the riot of colour all around and to marvel at how the
earth, the essence of life, really can bring forth food in abundance.
The following content is only available to members. Join us for access
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-11-01 12:42:252023-11-01 12:42:25Summer is here! The trick to getting abundant berry crops and other organic garden tips
An ambitious new study looks at nutrient-dense food production in New Zealand.
The content below is free to read from our Nov-Dec 2023 issue. This article is sponsored by Kete Ora Trust.
What is the best food we can eat for good human health? How is it grown and produced? What connections do New Zealanders make between the food they eat and how it is grown?
Many growers and their customers believe biodynamic and organically-grown food has specific health benefits. Kete Ora Trust is undertaking research here in Aotearoa New Zealand that compares the nutrient density of food produced in biodynamic, organic, and non-organic systems respectively. It will also investigate consumer perceptions of these different foods.
This is world-class research, firmly evidence-based, that will review and build on a handful of studies done around the world over the past 30 years. Kete Ora has commissioned Plant & Food Research Rangahau Ahumāra Kai to carry out three distinct stages of enquiry.
A review of existing studies will identify research gaps, which will inform applied research into specific topics. Kete Ora Trust is funding the first two areas of research and will invite co-sponsors for the third stage.
Above: Picual Olive – ripe fruit on tree.
Why biodynamics?
Ask the people who grow biodynamic food, and those who search it out to buy it, and they’ll tell you about the full, rich flavour of the fruit and vegetables, its resistance to disease and how well it keeps. “Biodynamic food has vitality,” says Dieter Proebst, one of New Zealand’s most experienced biodynamic growers and consultants. “And that vitality is imparted to the people who eat it.
“Biodynamics treats the soil, the crops, and the animals gently. There are no tricks used to produce a crop. As an apple grower, I sought to bring out what the winemakers call terroir, the expression of all the unique characteristics of where and how that food was grown.”
Ross Vintiner of Dali Estate in Martinborough is a Kete Ora trustee and careful steward of an organic and biodynamic grove of 1100 olive trees. He’s been instrumental in establishing this research project. Ross has won major international competitions with his olive oils, which have very high levels of polyphenols, a micronutrient that helps fight diseases like cancer and heart disease. Dali’s customers pay a premium for oils of this quality.
In a biodynamic system – whether growing crops or pasture on which livestock graze – the health of the soil is inextricably linked with the health of the food it produces. The percentage of soil organic matter is a key measure of soil health. With its teeming microbial life, organic matter is vital for the transfer of nutrients between soil and plants and from there to animals, humans included. High organic matter and high microbial biomass correlate to nutrient-dense food.
Ross credits providing nutrition for soil life plus foliar feeding for significant gains in yield and quality. He doubled the kilograms of fruit, and litres of oil per tree over a five-year period, coinciding with doubling his soil’s organic matter content. In a tough drought-stricken year, when other olive growers had virtually no fruit, Dali Estate still brought in a good harvest. “That was thanks to high organic matter and an abundant leaf canopy, both resulting from careful mineral, microbe, moisture, and tree management,” says Ross.
Above: Instead of a herbicide-drenched dead zone under the canopy, as is usual in conventional systems, there’s a prolific and diverse sward under the Dali Estate olive trees, protecting the soil, providing habitat and food for pollinators and beneficial insects, and increasing production.
Urgent action required
On North American farmland today, soil organic matter levels are only half of what they were at the time those lands were converted from forest and prairie into farming. Modern non-organic farming practices, particularly cultivation and the use of chemical fertilisers, have decreased and degraded soil organic matter and the life it contains. In many industrialised farming systems, soil organic matter is often as low as one percent: it should be above seven.
At the same time, measures of the nutrient density of food grown in the US show a decline of forty percent since the 1940s. It’s likely similar in most Western nations given common agricultural practices. This is despite vastly more investment in farming intensity, chemical fertilisers, and machinery during this period. There’s a lot at stake, so gathering accurate and up-to-date global data about the impact and consequences of different production systems is vitally important. Two local production studies done in the 1990s demonstrated biodynamic and organic soils have higher biological and physical qualities compared to non-organic practices. (Physical qualities include the levels of soil organic matter, microbial activity, soil structure and root symbiosis, permeability, topsoil, and diversity.) Additionally, biodynamic and organic farms use less inputs and energy and produce less erosion and pollution.
These and other studies showed that the nutrient content of crops produced in biodynamic and organic systems varied, although compared with non-organic production, they had higher nutrient content the majority of the time.
Kete Ora’s research aims to answer questions, such as:
What is a high nutrient-dense food? Why are high nutrient-dense foods beneficial to human health?
Is there a difference, and if so, what is the difference in the nutrient and phytochemical content of foods grown using biodynamic methods compared with organic and conventional?
Which compounds are influenced to a greater degree by growing practice (micronutrients, macronutrients, phytochemicals)?
What nutrients are inputted and produced in biodynamic systems, compared to organic and non-organic systems?
Does the microbial biomass of living soil in biodynamics, organics, and conventional growing systems influence the nutrient density of food produced?
What crops respond best to biodynamics with respect to nutrient content?
Which nutrients do consumers care the most about?
What do consumers understand about biodynamics, compared to organic and conventional growing systems? What value do consumers place on biodynamic and organic food, compared with conventional food?
Kete Ora’s trustees hope answering these and other questions will assist consumers, growers and policy makers to make best choices for healthy food from the best growing systems.
Kete Ora Trust is a charitable organisation established in 1997 thanks to generous bequests. It invests in, and supports education and research into biodynamic, organic, and regenerative land use in Aotearoa New Zealand. Visit keteora.nz for more information. Donations to support its kaupapa are warmly invited.
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-11-01 08:37:002023-11-01 08:37:00Studying the benefits
Competition now closed. Thank you to all our sponsors and business partners.
EACH HAMPER CONTAINED:
KARMA DRINKS: karmadrinks.co.nz – 12x cans of Lemmy Lemonade $34.99 PURE BREAD: purebread.co.nz – Online voucher for organic bread $50 ECOAVO: ecoavo.com – 4kg organic Hass avocados $20 BOOK: Vege Patch from Scratch by Jo McCarroll: upstartpress.co.nz – $44.99 (available in bookstores) GREEN TRADING: greentrading.co.nz – 2x Native Neem natural handwash, 250ml $18.50 TRILOGY NATURAL PRODUCTS: trilogyproducts.co.nz – Rosapene Bakuchiol Oil, 30mL $64, Certified Organic Rosehip Oil, 20mL $32.99, SPF50+ Omega-Boost Sheer Mineral Sunscreen $49.99 ELTA EGO: drinkeltaego.com – 4x alcohol-free cocktails $71.96 (2x Mojito, 2x Raspberry + Yuzu G&T) WAIHI BUSH ORGANIC FARM: waihibush.co.nz – Flaxseed Oil, 500 ml $35.75 ORGANIC FLOUR MILLS: organicflourmills.nz – 4x bread mixes $28 (Spelt/Rye, Spelt, Spelt/Wheat, Wheat) TRANZALPINE HONEY: tranzalpinehoney.co.nz – 4x Organic Comb Honey 100gm, $66 OVERCOMING CANCER CLINIC, NORTHLAND: overcoming-cancer-service.co – Voucher for a Therapy Plan $30 EVERKIND: everkindnz.com – Ultra Deodorant $23.99, Plush Lip Balm $16, Summer Body Balm $30 WE LOVE ORGANICS: weloveorganics.co.nz – Minty Fresh Teethpaste tube $21.50, Minty Charcoal Teethpaste jar $14.90, Refreshing TeethDrops $27.50 WET AND FORGET: wetandforget.co.nz – Seaweed Tea, organic plant & soil health tonic $44.98, Seafood Soup, organic fish fertiliser $44.95
And, the nominated winner also joins our whānau with an OrganicNZ gift membership
https://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/08/NovDec23_Pg19-HamperforWeb.jpg1080804Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-10-26 12:33:152024-08-26 14:27:51Nominations open for our Christmas Hamper
Summer is such a waiting and watching period. All the hard work of spring is about to come to fruition – if we protect and nurture our precious plants and their ground crew. Diana Noonan shares her experience of growing food organically and reminds us, as we tinker in the garden, to enjoy the riot of colour all around and to marvel at how the earth, the essence of life, really can bring forth food in abundance.
We hope you enjoy this free article from OrganicNZ. Join us to access more, exclusive members-only content.
E hoa ma, ina te ora o te tangata – My friends, this is the essence of life.
Berry blossom
Berry bushes are among the most productive food producers in the garden, with their fruit considered to be full of disease-fighting nutrients. The blossom of some of the most health-giving berries (Worcester, currants, and blueberries, for instance) is so obscure that we barely notice it. But birds are fully aware of its presence!
In spring and early summer, berry flower buds and blossom provide nutrition to birds whose other food sources, such as fruit and seeds, are not yet available. And once the blossom is eaten, there’s no hope of berries.
For the past few years, I’ve begun netting my berry bushes long before their blossom even appears, and the net stays on right through until harvest has been completed. The rewards are kilos of fruit where before there was none!
TIP: Keep a careful watch for the subtle buds and blossoms on berry bushes, and cover the plants before they even start to bloom.
Mulch in the menagerie!
Think ‘mulch’ and your mind immediately goes to weed suppression and locking in moisture. But mulch has an even more important job – it provides a safe home for all sorts of insects that devour slugs, snails, and their eggs.
When looking for a summer mulch, I go for one that is less open, and more likely to create the cool, damp conditions my garden helpers prefer to hide under (think dried lawn clippings mixed with leaf mould, organic sawdust, and soaked, ground, coconut coir). I save more open mulches (such as pea and oat straw) for when conditions are wet, and the ground needs to dry out.
TIP: Plant some quick-growing biomass and invest in a chipper to grow your own mulch. Sugar cane and bana grass provide shelter and an annual supply of mulch material for frost-free areas (but must be chipped or will grow).
How to harvest
I always think of insect pests as being opportunistic. If there’s a way for them to access the tender, sweet part of a plant without having to pierce or gnaw their way through a tough stem or skin to do so, they’ll take it! That’s why it’s so important to harvest carefully. When you roughly tear a lettuce or silverbeet leaf off a plant instead of breaking it off cleanly at its base, you leave behind a jagged, raw edge, and seeping juice. Nothing is more inviting to insects (or to diseasecausing fungi) than having such easy access to the food or environment they crave.
It’s the same when you cut a cauliflower or cabbage from its stem, and leave the stump in the garden. The soft exterior of the stem is exposed, and in comes an army of pests and diseases to set up home in it.
Curse of the Cabbage White
First recorded in Napier in 1929, cabbage white butterflies are getting more numerous and their caterpillars wreak havoc in my brassicas. All my vegetable beds are covered with plastic netting to protect them from birds, rabbits, and possums, but my brassicas live under a double layer of net – it’s the only way to keep the butterflies out as they can fold their wings and slip through a single layer of netting. Alternatively, consider growing in a crop tunnel (similar to a tunnel house but not designed to trap heat).
Double-layered netting is no fun to lift and crawl under to weed, so I mulch round seedlings right from the start to keep the ground clear beneath the plants.
If you have slug and snail problems, and going under the netting is essential to catch them, do it at night when the cabbage white butterflies are not about.
Aphids also tend to set up home on brassica as the weather warms up, but birds (the usual go-to for pest control) can’t reach them under double netting. I plant yarrow, fennel, marigold, and alyssum close by to attract ladybirds to do the job instead.
Orchard irrigation
It’s tempting to think that only newly planted fruit trees require water, but nothing could be further from the truth. As the summer heats up, a medium-sized, established fruit tree in dry conditions will welcome 6-8 household buckets of water a day to keep its young fruit healthy. I lock in the moisture around my orchard trees with a living mulch of dwarf comfrey. I clip this to the ground several times during the summer, and over the clippings I spread any compost I have spare. Treating my trees in this way helps them produce plump, full fruit with strong stems that hold tight to the branches during hot summer winds.
TIP: Scrape existing mulch out to create a ‘bowl’ to direct the water down to the roots, then kick back over top to reduce evaporation.
Compost care
November and December are my compost-making months. They have to be, because my supplies of this essential ingredient have largely been used up with spring garden preparation.
To make maximum use of the sun, I build my compost in an open, north-facing spot, incorporating animal manure, kelp and pine needles into the ‘brown’ carbon layers, and then pile on lashings of fresh, green, garden waste and lawn clippings.
Once I have a free-standing cubic metre sized pile, I water it well, cover it with a double layer of cardboard, and top it off with a covering of old carpet to lock in the heat.
If time permits, over the coming weeks, I’ll turn the pile a couple of times. If time is short – the maturing compost looks after itself. In a couple of months, when the heat has died down, I remove the covering and move the compost into open bags in the shed to protect it from the rain while it matures
It can be nerve-racking to go without synthetic fertilisers for the first time. Will lettuces really have the nitrogen they need? Can kelp load your tomatoes with the potassium they crave? I remember having these concerns when I first gave up using crumbly chemicals from plastic bags.
Growing organically is about learning to trust your soil, its structure, and the microorganisms within it. Don’t be tempted to ‘cheat’ with a handful of Nitrophoska ‘just in case.’ Organic nutrients really will provide for your plants, slowly and steadily, for many weeks or months and chemical fertilisers will interfere with the ecological system and its ability to hold and convert nutrients into food for your plants.
If you must do something, mix up some liquid compost, seaweed or worm tea, and water it around the base of your plants.
Diana Noonan lives in the Catlins where she grows 70 percent of her food using a variety of methods including permaculture food forest to French intensive.
https://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.png00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-10-26 12:18:272025-07-04 16:49:05Summer is here! Berry crops and other organic garden tips
Recycling plant matter into plant food is half of the cycle of life. Kaitlyn Lamb describes how this can be done on any scale, in any place – even the most urban situation.
The following content is only available to members. Join us for access
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-10-26 11:56:532025-04-03 18:48:49How-to: urban composting with bokashi, worm farming, and more!
Over four decades, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of voluntary hours have been committed to establishing a solid foundation for organics in New Zealand. Brendan Hoare recounts the journey, the challenges, and the lessons learnt in the creation of the Organic Product and Production Act 2023.
We hope you enjoy this free article from OrganicNZ. Join us to access more, exclusive members-only content.
Like all landmark events, there is a back story. Our tumultuous expedition to protect and promote organics in Aotearoa New Zealand through regulation is no different. Like all journeys, there are multiple trials, tribulations, twists, and turns that test intent, motivations, and determination. This article outlines the ten-year journey that led to the passing of the Organic Products and Production Act 2023 (Organic Act) and will conclude with key observations for present and future. The article follows on from ‘Getting our Organic Act Together’ (OrganicNZ March/April 2020).
The Organic Products and Production Bill became law on 5 April 2023. It is the most profound change to the organic sector in New Zealand to date and will shape our progress for decades to come.
Since the 1980s, the organic sector has sought from the government a policy to protect and grow organic. By 1999, we’d gone as far as to publish and describe in Organic NZ describing 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”.
The Organic Federation of New Zealand (OFNZ)1 formed in 1999 and morphed into Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ) as a united force representing the organic sector with the core purpose to ‘grow and develop organic’. OANZ identified regulation and national standards were required to do this2.
OANZ’s formal creation in 2006 had government funding to assist it in its initial development. The funding ran out without its intent being fully achieved. Prior to 2012, OANZ had nearly collapsed. Rebuilding was a slow, incremental task which began with the launch of our 2012 Organic Market Report (Market Report), on 6 March 20133 in Parliament. This launch was not supported or attended by the National-lead government, but 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.)
By June 2013 OANZ had engaged communications expertise from Christine Dann and we raised awareness of the need for regulation by utilising the Market Report, front-page articles in NZ Herald highlighting the proliferation of ‘Dodgy Organic Labels’4 and the fact that, at that time, all the top 25 organic trading countries had regulation, except New Zealand, Australia, India, and several others did not.
OANZ decided to focus on and initiate discussions with government officials responsible for market regulations and consumer protection. We developed and published an ‘Introduction to Regulations’ paper for our members, and officially adopted the OANZ Regulation Working Group, which, for the first time, consisted of all the certification bodies. It also included the Organic Exporters Association of New Zealand. We also secured a meeting with Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) directors to explain the situation and opportunity. We were on a roll.
By September 2013 we had met with Food Minister Hon Nikki Kaye, MPI’s technical lead Glen Neal, and Director of Food Policy Karen Adair. Nikki Kaye’s advisor was MPI’s Fiona Duncan who had been close to the sector’s work since 2002. We had invited the Primary Industry Minister Nathan Guy, but he was not available. The meeting with Kaye was positive and progressive and as agreed, we spent the next six months defining the problem with MPI’s technical and policy teams. We liaised with a wide cross-section of the organic community who openly shared examples of organic fraud and risks to their business. By March 2014 we, with MPI, had identified that there was a problem that required regulatory protection. The regulatory framework as it was in 2014 offered no protection for organic producers and consumers and also jeopardised potential trade relationships with international markets that had regulated organic. MPI presented these findings to OANZ’s AGM in Auckland on 4 July 2014, affirming that a regulatory approach was to be sought.
Simultaneously OANZ had actively engaged and enrolled what it called its ‘5 + 2 strategy’. Horticulture New Zealand, New Zealand Winegrowers, Beef and Lamb, Dairy NZ, and the Federation of Māori Authority being the five and Countdown and Foodstuffs being the two, were provided clear logic and rationale for regulating organic. Progress with New Zealand’s primary industry, all political parties, and government was positive and by December 2014 OANZ had released a position paper on why to regulate organic in NZ. This was well received by everyone. All was on track. We had created great working relationships across the organic community, primary industry, major retail and government. We felt positive and were still on a roll.
By February 2015, as we were gearing into what promised to be a prosperous year, we came across several roadblocks. Firstly, critical MPI staff who had been instrumental in progressing the organic case had changed roles and our Ministerial champion Niki Kaye had been promoted to Minister of ACC. With new staff and Minster Nathan Guy now in charge we had to rebuild relationships, and felt comfortable in doing so. However, at the end of April 2015 MPI senior staff advised that any regulation would be under the Food Act 2014 and when we explained this would not work, because organic was not just about food, we were told categorically that organic was now “a low priority for MPI”. MPI provided us their very (in)famous ‘Development of Domestic Organic Regulation Programme scorecard which demonstrated their assessment only gave us 45 out of 365 – that is 12.3%!
While this seems incredulous, or even cynically humorous now, it was utterly devastating then.
In May we reflected on our work on regulation to date. As we communicated MPI’s decision to discontinue work on regulation to our wide community, we received full support,shared frustration and dismay.
This was a critical moment for the regulation of organics and OANZ. While we had rebuilt trust and demonstrated value in OANZ as a national organisation, and communicated the need to protect and grow organic through regulation, it was also true that this had largely been achieved through the vision, networks, drive, and tenacity of myself as Executive Chair, the communications and political skills of Christine Dann, and reliance on a few critical members from leading organic sectors; all voluntary. We were exhausted. It was not sustainable. We needed help and resources.
In August 2015 we held an OANZ national special meeting to explain the situation. Doug Voss, the Chair of the Certified Organic Kiwifruit Organisation became Chair of OANZ, a Board was elected, I moved to being the Executive Director, and Niki Morell took over Christine’s work to lead communications.
We wasted no time re- engaging past leaders of MPI as to what might be the reason for MPI’s ‘change in heart’ and utilised the sector’s networks to lobby political parties and other Ministries such as the Commerce Commission, Ministry of Business and Innovation, Standards New Zealand, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We transferred our energy towards directly engaging the Primary Production Select Committee (PPSC) where we found favour across all political parties. By the end of year, we had rekindled the ‘OANZ Regulation Working Group’ and changed its name to the ‘Standards Working Group and included MPI staff from their Official Organic Assurance Programme (OOAP)’ The name change was to appease the concerns that using the word regulation would upset trade negotiations by giving the perception that we did not have any regulation; which was true.
We utilised the frustration of the sector being told there ‘was no need to protect or grow organic’ to raise substantial sponsorship and presented our updated 2015 Market Report to Parliament on 7 April 2016. This time we had the leadership of the PPSC chair and National MP Ian McKelvie and support from Greens, Labour, and NZ First as well of course the whole organic community. It was a great success.
The OANZ 2016 Market Report5 again demonstrated substantial growth and the requirement to safeguard the domestic and international markets. We emphasised one simple message: serious export earnings were increasingly at risk because we did not have a domestic organic regulation. However, this time, immediately following the Market Report launch, we had arranged a public presentation with the Primary Production Select Committee (PPSC) where we reiterated OANZ’s simple, clear four-point plan to:
Regulate the use of the term organic
Develop a single national standard.
Adopt MPI’s OOAP Technical Rules as the National Standard.
The National Standard will cover export, domestic, and imported certified organic product.
The PPSC’s subsequent report noted that: “We support the work OANZ is doing and agree that a universal regulated standard should be developed and implemented as soon as possible.”6
The Minister’s official response to the PPSC was that he: “Welcomed an application from the sector to become a Primary Growth Partnership programme recipient in the future”, and that we would have to meet the criteria.
Within a month we had developed a simple plan and met with Minister for Primary industries Nathan Guy. By June, off the success of the Market Report, meetings with PPSC, and the Minister, we had created another position paper on the development of ‘Organic Regulation and Standards’ and delivered this to MPI. When, six weeks later, we had still not received areply from MPI, we knew where we had a problem.
As chance would have it, I met Scott Gallacher, the then Deputy Director General Regulation and Food Assurance at a Building Brand and Reputation Across Boarders conference in July 2016, we agreed to bring OANZ’s grievance to MPI’s senior management’s attention. In August, Scott hosted a meeting with Director Food and Regulatory Policy Karen Adair and Director Plants, Food and Environment Peter Thompson.
This meeting resulted in direct access to the Manager of Food Policy Colin Holden and senior policy staff. The outcome of the communications was that while MPI may have shared their support for our goals, their solution was to ‘consider’ bringing us under their Future of Food programme and utilising existing regulations that would connect with Ministry Business, Innovation & Employment, the Commerce Commission and the Fair Trading Act. They were struggling to find where and how we fitted. While we were being heard and told there was an understanding of how complex organic was, we still felt we were not being understood. We had to wait for MPI policy to come back to us.
This period also brought to a head internal issues withing OANZ’s members that had been brewing since the formation and appointment of a full board. This was largely centred around existing relationships between the certification agencies of BioGro, AsureQuality, and the Exporters group, who had a direct relationship with the MPI staff running the OOAP, and the position that OANZ was taking on behalf of the whole sector directly with senior MPI staff and the policy division. The tension was potentially divisive. The espoused threat was that anything new would disrupt existing trade relationships with markets through the OOAP and we had changed the name of our working group to appease this. However, through deeper engagement and correct persistence, OANZ’s found this position not to be of benefit or serve all its members and what is best for organics in Aotearoa New Zealand – hence its name.
We continued to build relationships with key industry sector partners, in particular, Horticulture New Zealand and New Zealand Winegrowers, which both represented large volumes of certified organic growers and export product. The Chair of Horticulture NZ at the time, and some of their board members, were organic licensees. It was great to have others singing our praises’ and voicing our concerns from another perspective. This gave our collective position gravitas.
We also stepped up the engagement. Simultaneous to our relationship building in the commercial sector and financial sector like ANZ, we organised for the PPSC to visit one of NZ’s leading organic regions – Hawkes Bay – and meet the whole OANZ Board. Our rationale was to demonstrate that organic is a total system from production to ingredients, inputs, products, services and yes, food, with a discerning consumer who participates in its definition and setting of standards. So, we wined and dined, visited organic viticulture, chicken, vegetable, and apple production systems at all scales, and demonstrated our world. MPs got to see first-hand what we had been talking about and got to talk directly to those most affected. This is always powerful.
The result of our networking (nationally and internationally), hosting, sharing, and lobbying was profound. We had mounting proof that the current MPI strategy was not working and was resulting in opportunity and advantage being lost. NZ’s failure to act was affecting growth in export markets.
This was an intense period of engagement that delivered results and by early 2017 we had returned to constructive dialogue with MPI – and organised a meeting with the recently appointed Minister for Food Safety David Bennet (who is a certified organic dairy farmer) and confirmed his commitment to establishing regulation. Special mention needs to go to Horticulture NZ’s Mike Chapman for hosting and arranging some of these meetings.
At the end of 2017 we had an election and a change in government. Damien O’Connor (who had been supportive since 2013) became the Minister of Agriculture, Biosecurity, Food Safety, Rural Communities, and later Trade. Being a-political and securing all political parties as to the benefit of organic had deep ramifications.
OANZ then met with Minister O’Connor who, on the advice of MPI’s policy team’s review, concluded that to protect and grow organic in New Zealand needed to have its own organic act.
Then on 20 June, our 2018 Market Report was launched in parliament for the third time. Ministers attended, as did MPs from all political parties, MPI and other ministry agencies, ambassadors, and a full array of organic practitioners. It was a great celebration; there was a sense of progress and success.
This period had been exhilarating, but exhausting on resources and relationships. The organic sector’s efforts were voluntary and draining on personal and inter-relationships on those that had led the work.
As OANZ reconciled this and went through its own internal changes our new law was being written by MPI staff. The first reading of the Organic Products Bill took place on 19 March 2020. On 5th April 2023 it was passed into law. It took just over three years with three readings, and a select committee process, before it became law.
The process has seen multiple reviews, a name change, created extensive debate both within and between the organic sector, and with and within MPI and politicians. MPI’s consultation process has improved over time. During this process it has reiterated that the organic sector is complex, diverse, not homogeneous, but of a common culture outlined in our principles of health, ecology, fairness and care.7 We remain committed, passionate, and seek practical change. We are relentless and persistent in our pursuit.
Engage to change
As the sector works with MPI to develop the regulations that will give shape to the Organic Act, key lessons from the decade include:
Stay close and connected with the community that you represent. Engage in participative, open transparent processes by sharing openly and listening. Be honest and clear in all responses, say when you do not know, work together to find solutions.
Have clear, powerful effective communications and engage professionals to help do this.
Ask for help, people want organic to succeed.
Always be inclusive of all political parties when engaging change at a national level. Politicians and political parties come and go from being in Government.
Build relationships and maintain them at every opportunity.
Find and nurture relationships with empathetic officials across multiple Ministries. People get promoted in their careers.
Stay true to organic values.
Moving forward
As we move closer to implementing the Organic Act through the regulations8, there is a lot for us to consider. They include:
1. What training would be required to manage the Act, regulations, standards, and auditors? What would that cost? Who is going to pay and through what system? 2. The organic standard may be owned by Government, but, who will manage it? 3. What would the future of OANZ look like and how will it be funded? 4. How will education and training be managed throughout the supply chain and by whom? 5. How will existing and new certification agencies engage with the national standard? 6. Will there be a national mark (logo)? Who will own, maintain and manage it? 7. What role will MPI and other key government agencies have in the new model? 8. How will it fit in global best practice models? Could New Zealand lead? Who would lead? 9. How do we ensure the organic sector remains both rigorous and united? 10. What other opportunities and expertise is required?
With the passing of the Act and development of supporting regulations, it is critical that we remain united, focused, strategic and work together with officials to ensure our Organic Act achieves it purpose to: – increase consumer confidence in buying products labelled “organic” – increase certainty for businesses claiming products as organic – facilitate international trade in organic products.
References
Original members of OFNZ were Soil and Health Association, BioGro NZ, Bio-Dynamic Association of NZ and Organic Products Exporters Group. ↩︎
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, ‘Organics Working Group Report’. September 2001 ISBN 0-478-07647-9 ↩︎
Brendan Hoare is a managing director of Buy Pure New Zealand. His involvement in organics has included holding positions with Soil & Health NZ (president), BioGro (director), OANZ (founder, executive chair, and CEO) and IFOAM (world board member). He is serves on the Organic Farm NZ Council. His business is run from the OFNZ certified ‘Long Breath Farm’, on the edge of the Waitakere Ranges.
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-09-12 10:30:162025-04-03 18:54:00Behind the scenes of the Organic Act
https://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/08/essano.jpg248249Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-08-31 12:01:082024-08-26 14:30:30Refresh with pro-again skincare from Essano
https://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/competition-thumbnail-transperant.png12001200Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-08-31 11:55:002024-08-26 14:31:29Biological Liquid Fish Fertiliser from United Fisheries
A philosophy that transcends all cultures, religions, or science has been practised in Aotearoa for nearly a century. It’s a holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming, gardening, food, and nutrition that is gaining recognition worldwide.
A holistic attitude to agriculture was initially proposed by philosopher and scientist, Rudolf Steiner, in the 1920s. Biological-dynamics (biodynamics) is a systems approach where the farm, vineyard, orchard, or garden is viewed as a living whole and each activity affects everything else.
“Biodynamics is an appropriate and powerful tool because of the way it works with different realms,” says biodynamics practitioner, Sam Weaver. “Biodynamics is inclusive, not reductive. It works with conventional science but also on a spiritual plane – that’s the power of it. It acknowledges that there are things beyond our knowledge that we can’t completely explain and certainly can’t control.
“Rudolf Steiner gave some suggestions about how those things might work, and biodynamic practitioners have been exploring and evolving those ideas ever since.”
Sam Weaver is the owner of Churton Wines, a certified organic vineyard run biodynamically in Marlborough. He says there is a growing interest in biodynamics in Aotearoa from those gardening and growing inside a Te Ao Māori framework, but the fastest expansion of biodynamics is in Southeast Asia; in places like Thailand, the Philippines and China.
Above: Village women in India learning from Rachel Pomeroy how to make biodynamic preparations.
There is also a lot of interest in Brazil and other parts of South America, says biodynamics practitioner and educator, Rachel Pomeroy.
“Biodynamics is compatible with any religious or philosophical system that is based on the truth of the world,” says Rachel. She spent many years teaching in India alongside her partner, biodynamics legend, Peter Proctor. Biodynamics was a system that all of India’s diverse traditions could embrace, whether Muslim, Catholic or Hindu.
Sam Weaver has given presentations on biodynamics to sommelier and wine students in Shanghai and other major cities in China. “Those audiences understood the importance of a lunar calendar; cosmic influences are still part of their framework of belief. So biodynamics is very comfortable for them. It’s inclusive, just as applicable to modern Western cultures as it is to people of different cultures and spiritual traditions.”
While biodynamics is often associated with viticulture and wine-making (see OrganicNZ May/June 2023), there are other sectors that prize heightened senses and appreciate the subtle terrior enhanced by biodynamic practices. In India, growing and blending the best tea and coffee is comparable to premium wine-making. “Professional tea tasters and blenders in India, have lifelong expertise. They are sampling teas all day and they can notice the difference in the teas grown biodynamically,” says Rachel.
Above: Rachel Pomeroy discussing soil fertility management with Arifa Rafee, owner of a biodynamic mango orchard in India.
Rachel’s cheerful enthusiasm and curiosity are infectious. She has a MSc(hons) in Botany and Plant Physiology and decades of practical experience with biodynamics. She is comfortable in both views and adept at weaving insights from Western science into her teaching of biodynamics. For instance, the biodynamic practice of making a cow pat pit (CPP), which has many applications and encourages health and vigour, has been found to be exceptionally high in natural growth-promoting hormones, like auxins and gibberellins.
Rachel says it would be helpful to have more science that substantiates the impact of biodynamic practices, especially given the urgent need for practices that mitigate climate change and produce food in a more environmentally-sustainable way.
But for individual farmers themselves, corroboration from Western science isn’t needed. “It would verify what they already know from their own experience. People stick with biodynamics because they like the end result. If you hate putting poison on the ground, you’re not going to enjoy your days as an industrial farmer. Those who stick with biodynamics are those making a satisfactory income while farming in a way they find satisfying and worthwhile.”
Biodynamics in Aotearoa
There are many ways that biodynamics resonates with traditional ways of knowing and here in Aotearoa it seems there is a lot of enthusiasm for exploring how biodynamic ideas reflect customary Māori systems of food growing.
Kete Ora Trust supported a two-day workshop near Wellington in 2021, co-led by Rachel Pomeroy and Dr Jessica Hutchings, a notable Māori researcher, activist, and gardener. Dozens of people gathered to share their knowledge and deepen their understanding of both biodynamics and Hua Parakore, a kaupapa Māori system and framework for growing kai.
Above: Working together to make a large biodynamic compost heap was among the many hands-on activities at the Wellington workshop.
The workshop featured conversations grounded in the Kaupapa Māori principles underpinning Hua Parakore practices and the ordering principles of the cosmos as understood through biodynamics. “Just as Ranginui and Papatūānuku ground the woven universe that is Te Ao Māori; biodynamic approaches acknowledge and harness the polarity of light and dark and the relationship between stars and soil,” said Jessica.
“Both approaches task tangata (people) with the role of rebuilding the vitality of our soils and strengthening the relationships between people and nature. Understanding ourselves as nature, and as nurturers of nature, were key learnings from our time together.”
Kete Ora Trust is a charitable organisation established in 1997 thanks to generous bequests. It invests in, and supports education and research into biodynamic, organic, and regenerative land use in Aotearoa New Zealand. Visit keteora.nz for more information about applying for grants or making a donation.
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-08-25 11:10:002023-08-25 11:10:00Healing the earth through biodynamics
OrganicNZ Emerging Leader of the Year Award
/in Organic WeekOrganic NZ Emerging Leader of the Year
Voting runs from 3 April to 29 April
This award recognises someone working in an inspiring leadership role in the New Zealand organics/kai atua sector with under five years of experience.
The Criteria
Nominations for this category have to be:
The finalists…
Alex Morrissey, Founder of Little Farms
https://wearelittlefarms.com/
Alex champions organic farming, environmental sustainability, and community equity. She connects local organic growers, reduces food miles, and empowers communities through education and accessible produce. Alex’s work embodies a commitment to a healthier, fairer society.
Jamie Tucker, Founding farmer at Laughing Pukeko and programme coordinator at AsureQuality
https://laughingpukeko.co.nz/
Jamie established the BHU market garden and is now a Program Coordinator at AsureQuality, focusing on freshwater. She’s an advocate for organics, volunteering at OANZ and engaging with Eat NZ as a 2022/23 Kaitiaki. Her commitment to sustainable agriculture and community involvement reflects her passion and dedication.
Saskia, Sheldon and Elle, Vagabond Veg
https://www.vagabondvege.nz/
Saskia, Elle and Sheldon are small scale farmers focused on growing with ecologically and socially centered practice. Embarking on the Hua Parakore journey and co-creating local food systems that work for farmers, community and our earth.
Each vote you make gives you one entry into the draw to win one of two $50 Kings Seeds Vouchers. Voting closes on 2 May, the winners of the seeds will be notified shortly after.
Summer is here! The trick to getting abundant berry crops and other organic garden tips
/in Gardening, Magazine ArticlesSummer is such a waiting and watching period. All the hard work of spring is about to come to fruition – if we protect and nurture our precious plants and their ground crew. Diana Noonan shares her experience of growing food organically and reminds us, as we tinker in the garden, to enjoy the riot of colour all around and to marvel at how the earth, the essence of life, really can bring forth food in abundance.
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Studying the benefits
/in Free Online, Health and Food, Magazine ArticlesAn ambitious new study looks at nutrient-dense food production in New Zealand.
The content below is free to read from our Nov-Dec 2023 issue. This article is sponsored by Kete Ora Trust.
What is the best food we can eat for good human health? How is it grown and produced? What connections do New Zealanders make between the food they eat and how it is grown?
Many growers and their customers believe biodynamic and organically-grown food has specific health benefits. Kete Ora Trust is undertaking research here in Aotearoa New Zealand that compares the nutrient density of food produced in biodynamic, organic, and non-organic systems respectively. It will also investigate consumer perceptions of these different foods.
This is world-class research, firmly evidence-based, that will review and build on a handful of studies done around the world over the past 30 years. Kete Ora has commissioned Plant & Food Research Rangahau Ahumāra Kai to carry out three distinct stages of enquiry.
A review of existing studies will identify research gaps, which will inform applied research into specific topics. Kete Ora Trust is funding the first two areas of research and will invite co-sponsors for the third stage.
Why biodynamics?
Ask the people who grow biodynamic food, and those who search it out to buy it, and they’ll tell you about the full, rich flavour of the fruit and vegetables, its resistance to disease and how well it keeps. “Biodynamic food has vitality,” says Dieter Proebst, one of New Zealand’s most experienced biodynamic growers and consultants. “And that vitality is imparted to the people who eat it.
“Biodynamics treats the soil, the crops, and the animals gently. There are no tricks used to produce a crop. As an apple grower, I sought to bring out what the winemakers call terroir, the expression of all the unique characteristics of where and how that food was grown.”
Ross Vintiner of Dali Estate in Martinborough is a Kete Ora trustee and careful steward of an organic and biodynamic grove of 1100 olive trees. He’s been instrumental in establishing this research project. Ross has won major international competitions with his olive oils, which have very high levels of polyphenols, a micronutrient that helps fight diseases like cancer and heart disease. Dali’s customers pay a premium for oils of this quality.
In a biodynamic system – whether growing crops or pasture on which livestock graze – the health of the soil is inextricably linked with the health of the food it produces. The percentage of soil organic matter is a key measure of soil health. With its teeming microbial life, organic matter is vital for the transfer of nutrients between soil and plants and from there to animals, humans included. High organic matter and high microbial biomass correlate to nutrient-dense food.
Ross credits providing nutrition for soil life plus foliar feeding for significant gains in yield and quality. He doubled the kilograms of fruit, and litres of oil per tree over a five-year period, coinciding with doubling his soil’s organic matter content. In a tough drought-stricken year, when other olive growers had virtually no fruit, Dali Estate still brought in a good harvest. “That was thanks to high organic matter and an abundant leaf canopy, both resulting from careful mineral, microbe, moisture, and tree management,” says Ross.
Urgent action required
On North American farmland today, soil organic matter levels are only half of what they were at the time those lands were converted from forest and prairie into farming. Modern non-organic farming practices, particularly cultivation and the use of chemical fertilisers, have decreased and degraded soil organic matter and the life it contains. In many industrialised farming systems, soil organic matter is often as low as one percent: it should be above seven.
At the same time, measures of the nutrient density of food grown in the US show a decline of forty percent since the 1940s. It’s likely similar in most Western nations given common agricultural practices. This is despite vastly more investment in farming intensity, chemical fertilisers, and machinery during this period.
There’s a lot at stake, so gathering accurate and up-to-date global data about the impact and consequences of different production systems is vitally important. Two local production studies done in the 1990s demonstrated biodynamic and organic soils have higher biological and physical qualities compared to non-organic practices. (Physical qualities include the levels of soil organic matter, microbial activity, soil structure and root symbiosis, permeability, topsoil, and diversity.) Additionally, biodynamic and organic farms use less inputs and energy and produce less erosion and pollution.
These and other studies showed that the nutrient content of crops produced in biodynamic and organic systems varied, although compared with non-organic production, they had higher nutrient content the majority of the time.
Kete Ora’s research aims to answer questions, such as:
Kete Ora’s trustees hope answering these and other questions will assist consumers, growers and policy makers to make best choices for healthy food from the best growing systems.
More reading
More in-depth information can be found on Kete Ora’s website, including the need for the project, the questions the research seeks to answer, and details about previous scientific studies into this area.
keteora.nz/stories/research-project-launched/
Dali Estate: daliolives.co.nz
RNZ profile of Dali Estate: bit.ly/3sGNrAQ
Dieter Proebst: treedimensions.co.nz
Kete Ora Trust is a charitable organisation established in 1997 thanks to generous bequests. It invests in, and supports education and research into biodynamic, organic, and regenerative land use in Aotearoa New Zealand. Visit keteora.nz for more information. Donations to support its kaupapa are warmly invited.
Nominations open for our Christmas Hamper
/in CompetitionsCompetition now closed. Thank you to all our sponsors and business partners.
EACH HAMPER CONTAINED:
KARMA DRINKS: karmadrinks.co.nz – 12x cans of Lemmy Lemonade $34.99
PURE BREAD: purebread.co.nz – Online voucher for organic bread $50
ECOAVO: ecoavo.com – 4kg organic Hass avocados $20
BOOK: Vege Patch from Scratch by Jo McCarroll: upstartpress.co.nz – $44.99 (available in bookstores)
GREEN TRADING: greentrading.co.nz – 2x Native Neem natural handwash, 250ml $18.50
TRILOGY NATURAL PRODUCTS: trilogyproducts.co.nz – Rosapene Bakuchiol Oil, 30mL $64, Certified Organic Rosehip Oil, 20mL $32.99, SPF50+ Omega-Boost Sheer Mineral Sunscreen $49.99
ELTA EGO: drinkeltaego.com – 4x alcohol-free cocktails $71.96 (2x Mojito, 2x Raspberry + Yuzu G&T)
WAIHI BUSH ORGANIC FARM: waihibush.co.nz – Flaxseed Oil, 500 ml $35.75
ORGANIC FLOUR MILLS: organicflourmills.nz – 4x bread mixes $28 (Spelt/Rye, Spelt, Spelt/Wheat, Wheat)
TRANZALPINE HONEY: tranzalpinehoney.co.nz – 4x Organic Comb Honey 100gm, $66
OVERCOMING CANCER CLINIC, NORTHLAND: overcoming-cancer-service.co – Voucher for a Therapy Plan $30
EVERKIND: everkindnz.com – Ultra Deodorant $23.99, Plush Lip Balm $16, Summer Body Balm $30
WE LOVE ORGANICS: weloveorganics.co.nz – Minty Fresh Teethpaste tube $21.50, Minty Charcoal Teethpaste jar $14.90, Refreshing TeethDrops $27.50
WET AND FORGET: wetandforget.co.nz – Seaweed Tea, organic plant & soil health tonic $44.98, Seafood Soup, organic fish fertiliser $44.95
And, the nominated winner also joins our whānau
with an OrganicNZ gift membership
Summer is here! Berry crops and other organic garden tips
/in Free Online, Gardening, Magazine ArticlesSummer is such a waiting and watching period. All the hard work of spring is about to come to fruition – if we protect and nurture our precious plants and their ground crew. Diana Noonan shares her experience of growing food organically and reminds us, as we tinker in the garden, to enjoy the riot of colour all around and to marvel at how the earth, the essence of life, really can bring forth food in abundance.
We hope you enjoy this free article from OrganicNZ. Join us to access more, exclusive members-only content.
Berry blossom
Berry bushes are among the most productive food producers in the garden, with their fruit considered to be full of disease-fighting nutrients. The blossom of some of the most health-giving berries (Worcester, currants, and blueberries, for instance) is so obscure that we barely notice it. But birds are fully aware of its presence!
In spring and early summer, berry flower buds and blossom provide nutrition to birds whose other food sources, such as fruit and seeds, are not yet available. And once the blossom is eaten, there’s no hope of berries.
For the past few years, I’ve begun netting my berry bushes long before their blossom even appears, and the net stays on right through until harvest has been completed. The rewards are kilos of fruit where before there was none!
TIP: Keep a careful watch for the subtle buds and blossoms on berry bushes, and cover the plants before they even start to bloom.
Mulch in the menagerie!
Think ‘mulch’ and your mind immediately goes to weed suppression and locking in moisture. But mulch has an even more important job – it provides a safe home for all sorts of insects that devour slugs, snails, and their eggs.
When looking for a summer mulch, I go for one that is less open, and more likely to create the cool, damp conditions my garden helpers prefer to hide under (think dried lawn clippings mixed with leaf mould, organic sawdust, and soaked, ground, coconut coir). I save more open mulches (such as pea and oat straw) for when conditions are wet, and the ground needs to dry out.
TIP: Plant some quick-growing biomass and invest in a chipper to grow your own mulch. Sugar cane and bana grass provide shelter and an annual supply of mulch material for frost-free areas (but must be chipped or will grow).
How to harvest
I always think of insect pests as being opportunistic. If there’s a way for them to access the tender, sweet part of a plant without having to pierce or gnaw their way through a tough stem or skin to do so, they’ll take it! That’s why it’s so important to harvest carefully. When you roughly tear a lettuce or silverbeet leaf off a plant instead of breaking it off cleanly at its base, you leave behind a jagged, raw edge, and seeping juice. Nothing is more inviting to insects (or to diseasecausing fungi) than having such easy access to the food or environment they crave.
It’s the same when you cut a cauliflower or cabbage from its stem, and leave the stump in the garden. The soft exterior of the stem is exposed, and in comes an army of pests and diseases to set up home in it.
Curse of the Cabbage White
First recorded in Napier in 1929, cabbage white butterflies are getting more numerous and their caterpillars wreak havoc in my brassicas. All my vegetable beds are covered with plastic netting to protect them from birds, rabbits, and possums, but my brassicas live under a double layer of net – it’s the only way to keep the butterflies out as they can fold their wings and slip through a single layer of netting. Alternatively, consider growing in a crop tunnel (similar to a tunnel house but not designed to trap heat).
Double-layered netting is no fun to lift and crawl under to weed, so I mulch round seedlings right from the start to keep the ground clear beneath the plants.
If you have slug and snail problems, and going under the netting is essential to catch them, do it at night when the cabbage white butterflies are not about.
Aphids also tend to set up home on brassica as the weather warms up, but birds (the usual go-to for pest control) can’t reach them under double netting. I plant yarrow, fennel, marigold, and alyssum close by to attract ladybirds to do the job instead.
Orchard irrigation
It’s tempting to think that only newly planted fruit trees require water, but nothing could be further from the truth. As the summer heats up, a medium-sized, established fruit tree in dry conditions will welcome 6-8 household buckets of water a day to keep its young fruit healthy. I lock in the moisture around my orchard trees with a living mulch of dwarf comfrey. I clip this to the ground several times during the summer, and over the clippings I spread any compost I have spare. Treating my trees in this way helps them produce plump, full fruit with strong stems that hold tight to the branches during hot summer winds.
TIP: Scrape existing mulch out to create a ‘bowl’ to direct the water down to the roots, then kick back over top to reduce evaporation.
Compost care
November and December are my compost-making months. They have to be, because my supplies of this essential ingredient have largely been used up with spring garden preparation.
To make maximum use of the sun, I build my compost in an open, north-facing spot, incorporating animal manure, kelp and pine needles into the ‘brown’ carbon layers, and then pile on lashings of fresh, green, garden waste and lawn clippings.
Once I have a free-standing cubic metre sized pile, I water it well, cover it with a double layer of cardboard, and top it off with a covering of old carpet to lock in the heat.
If time permits, over the coming weeks, I’ll turn the pile a couple of times. If time is short – the maturing compost looks after itself. In a couple of months, when the heat has died down, I remove the covering and move the compost into open bags in the shed to protect it from the rain while it matures
Sow me now
Flowers: Amaranth, cleome, cosmos,
crimson clover, nasturtium, phacelia,
stock, sunflower.
Herbs: Angelica, basil, borage, chives,
lemon balm, oregano.
Veges: Beans (all varieties), beetroot,
broccoli, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower,
courgette, lettuce, parsnip, potato,
pumpkin (cooler regions), radish,
sweetcorn, NZ yam, yacon.
Healthy herbs
It can be nerve-racking to go without synthetic fertilisers for the first time. Will lettuces really have the nitrogen they need? Can kelp load your tomatoes with the potassium they crave? I remember having these concerns when I first gave up using crumbly chemicals from plastic bags.
Growing organically is about learning to trust your soil, its structure, and the microorganisms within it. Don’t be tempted to ‘cheat’ with a handful of Nitrophoska ‘just in case.’ Organic nutrients really will provide for your plants, slowly and steadily, for many weeks or months and chemical fertilisers will interfere with the ecological system and its ability to hold and convert nutrients into food for your plants.
If you must do something, mix up some liquid compost, seaweed or worm tea, and water it around the base of your plants.
Transplant me now
Flowers: Cosmos, federation daisy,
dianthus, gerbera, goldenrod, impatiens,
marigold, phlox, snap dragons,
wallflower.
Herbs: Cat mint (Nepeta), bergamot,
horse radish, mint, kohi kohi,
lavender, parsley, tarragon.
Veges: Broccoli, cabbage, capsicum,
cauliflower, celery, cucumber, courgette,
lettuce, globe artichoke, pumpkin, silver
beet, melons, and kūmara (warmer
districts).
Diana Noonan lives in the Catlins where she grows 70 percent of her food using a variety of methods including permaculture food forest to French intensive.
How-to: urban composting with bokashi, worm farming, and more!
/in Features, Gardening, Magazine ArticlesRecycling plant matter into plant food is half of the cycle of life. Kaitlyn Lamb describes how this can be done on any scale, in any place – even the most urban situation.
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Behind the scenes of the Organic Act
/in Features, Free Online, Magazine ArticlesOver four decades, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of voluntary hours have been committed to establishing a solid foundation for organics in New Zealand. Brendan Hoare recounts the journey, the challenges, and the lessons learnt in the creation of the Organic Product and Production Act 2023.
We hope you enjoy this free article from OrganicNZ. Join us to access more, exclusive members-only content.
Like all landmark events, there is a back story. Our tumultuous expedition to protect and promote organics in Aotearoa New Zealand through regulation is no different. Like all journeys, there are multiple trials, tribulations, twists, and turns that test intent, motivations, and determination. This article outlines the ten-year journey that led to the passing of the Organic Products and Production Act 2023 (Organic Act) and will conclude with key observations for present and future. The article follows on from ‘Getting our Organic Act Together’ (OrganicNZ March/April 2020).
Since the 1980s, the organic sector has sought from the government a policy to protect and grow organic. By 1999, we’d gone as far as to publish and describe in Organic NZ describing 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”.
The Organic Federation of New Zealand (OFNZ)1 formed in 1999 and morphed into Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ) as a united force representing the organic sector with the core purpose to ‘grow and develop organic’. OANZ identified regulation and national standards were required to do this2.
OANZ’s formal creation in 2006 had government funding to assist it in its initial development. The funding ran out without its intent being fully achieved. Prior to 2012, OANZ had nearly collapsed. Rebuilding was a slow, incremental task which began with the launch of our 2012 Organic Market Report (Market Report), on 6 March 20133 in Parliament. This launch was not supported or attended by the National-lead government, but 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.)
By June 2013 OANZ had engaged communications expertise from Christine Dann and we raised awareness of the need for regulation by utilising the Market Report, front-page articles in NZ Herald highlighting the proliferation of ‘Dodgy Organic Labels’4 and the fact that, at that time, all the top 25 organic trading countries had regulation, except New Zealand, Australia, India, and several others did not.
OANZ decided to focus on and initiate discussions with government officials responsible for market regulations and consumer protection. We developed and published an ‘Introduction to Regulations’ paper for our members, and officially adopted the OANZ Regulation Working Group, which, for the first time, consisted of all the certification bodies. It also included the Organic Exporters Association of New Zealand. We also secured a meeting with Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) directors to explain the situation and opportunity. We were on a roll.
By September 2013 we had met with Food Minister Hon Nikki Kaye, MPI’s technical lead Glen Neal, and Director of Food Policy Karen Adair. Nikki Kaye’s advisor was MPI’s Fiona Duncan who had been close to the sector’s work since 2002. We had invited the Primary Industry Minister Nathan Guy, but he was not available. The meeting with Kaye was positive and progressive and as agreed, we spent the next six months defining the problem with MPI’s technical and policy teams. We liaised with a wide cross-section of the organic community who openly shared examples of organic fraud and risks to their business. By March 2014 we, with MPI, had identified that there was a problem that required regulatory protection. The regulatory framework as it was in 2014 offered no protection for organic producers and consumers and also jeopardised potential trade relationships with international markets that had regulated organic. MPI presented these findings to OANZ’s AGM in Auckland on 4 July 2014, affirming that a regulatory approach was to be sought.
Simultaneously OANZ had actively engaged and enrolled what it called its ‘5 + 2 strategy’. Horticulture New Zealand, New Zealand Winegrowers, Beef and Lamb, Dairy NZ, and the Federation of Māori Authority being the five and Countdown and Foodstuffs being the two, were provided clear logic and rationale for regulating organic. Progress with New Zealand’s primary industry, all political parties, and government was positive and by December 2014 OANZ had released a position paper on why to regulate organic in NZ. This was well received by everyone. All was on track. We had created great working relationships across the organic community, primary industry, major retail and government. We felt positive and were still on a roll.
By February 2015, as we were gearing into what promised to be a prosperous year, we came across several roadblocks. Firstly, critical MPI staff who had been instrumental in progressing the organic case had changed roles and our Ministerial champion Niki Kaye had been promoted to Minister of ACC. With new staff and Minster Nathan Guy now in charge we had to rebuild relationships, and felt comfortable in doing so. However, at the end of April 2015 MPI senior staff advised that any regulation would be under the Food Act 2014 and when we explained this would not work, because organic was not just about food, we were told categorically that organic was now “a low priority for MPI”. MPI provided us their very (in)famous ‘Development of Domestic Organic Regulation Programme scorecard which demonstrated their assessment only gave us 45 out of 365 – that is 12.3%!
While this seems incredulous, or even cynically humorous now, it was utterly devastating then.
In May we reflected on our work on regulation to date. As we communicated MPI’s decision to discontinue work on regulation to our wide community, we received full support,shared frustration and dismay.
This was a critical moment for the regulation of organics and OANZ. While we had rebuilt trust and demonstrated value in OANZ as a national organisation, and communicated the need to protect and grow organic through regulation, it was also true that this had largely been achieved through the vision, networks, drive, and tenacity of myself as Executive Chair, the communications and political skills of Christine Dann, and reliance on a few critical members from leading organic sectors; all voluntary. We were exhausted. It was not sustainable. We needed help and resources.
In August 2015 we held an OANZ national special meeting to explain the situation. Doug Voss, the Chair of the Certified Organic Kiwifruit Organisation became Chair of OANZ, a Board was elected, I moved to being the Executive Director, and Niki Morell took over Christine’s work to lead communications.
We wasted no time re- engaging past leaders of MPI as to what might be the reason for MPI’s ‘change in heart’ and utilised the sector’s networks to lobby political parties and other Ministries such as the Commerce Commission, Ministry of Business and Innovation, Standards New Zealand, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We transferred our energy towards directly engaging the Primary Production Select Committee (PPSC) where we found favour across all political parties. By the end of year, we had rekindled the ‘OANZ Regulation Working Group’ and changed its name to the ‘Standards Working Group and included MPI staff from their Official Organic Assurance Programme (OOAP)’ The name change was to appease the concerns that using the word regulation would upset trade negotiations by giving the perception that we did not have any regulation; which was true.
We utilised the frustration of the sector being told there ‘was no need to protect or grow organic’ to raise substantial sponsorship and presented our updated 2015 Market Report to Parliament on 7 April 2016. This time we had the leadership of the PPSC chair and National MP Ian McKelvie and support from Greens, Labour, and NZ First as well of course the whole organic community. It was a great success.
The OANZ 2016 Market Report5 again demonstrated substantial growth and the requirement to safeguard the domestic and international markets. We emphasised one simple message: serious export earnings were increasingly at risk because we did not have a domestic organic regulation. However, this time, immediately following the Market Report launch, we had arranged a public presentation with the Primary Production Select Committee (PPSC) where we reiterated OANZ’s simple, clear four-point plan to:
The PPSC’s subsequent report noted that: “We support the work OANZ is doing and agree that a universal regulated standard should be developed and implemented as soon as possible.”6
The Minister’s official response to the PPSC was that he: “Welcomed an application from the sector to become a Primary Growth Partnership programme recipient in the future”, and that we would have to meet the criteria.
Within a month we had developed a simple plan and met with Minister for Primary industries Nathan Guy. By June, off the success of the Market Report, meetings with PPSC, and the Minister, we had created another position paper on the development of ‘Organic Regulation and Standards’ and delivered this to MPI. When, six weeks later, we had still not received areply from MPI, we knew where we had a problem.
As chance would have it, I met Scott Gallacher, the then Deputy Director General Regulation and Food Assurance at a Building Brand and Reputation Across Boarders conference in July 2016, we agreed to bring OANZ’s grievance to MPI’s senior management’s attention. In August, Scott hosted a meeting with Director Food and Regulatory Policy Karen Adair and Director Plants, Food and Environment Peter Thompson.
This meeting resulted in direct access to the Manager of Food Policy Colin Holden and senior policy staff. The outcome of the communications was that while MPI may have shared their support for our goals, their solution was to ‘consider’ bringing us under their Future of Food programme and utilising existing regulations that would connect with Ministry Business, Innovation & Employment, the Commerce Commission and the Fair Trading Act. They were struggling to find where and how we fitted. While we were being heard and told there was an understanding of how complex organic was, we still felt we were not being understood. We had to wait for MPI policy to come back to us.
This period also brought to a head internal issues withing OANZ’s members that had been brewing since the formation and appointment of a full board. This was largely centred around existing relationships between the certification agencies of BioGro, AsureQuality, and the Exporters group, who had a direct relationship with the MPI staff running the OOAP, and the position that OANZ was taking on behalf of the whole sector directly with senior MPI staff and the policy division. The tension was potentially divisive. The espoused threat was that anything new would disrupt existing trade relationships with markets through the OOAP and we had changed the name of our working group to appease this. However, through deeper engagement and correct persistence, OANZ’s found this position not to be of benefit or serve all its members and what is best for organics in Aotearoa New Zealand – hence its name.
We continued to build relationships with key industry sector partners, in particular, Horticulture New Zealand and New Zealand Winegrowers, which both represented large volumes of certified organic growers and export product. The Chair of Horticulture NZ at the time, and some of their board members, were organic licensees. It was great to have others singing our praises’ and voicing our concerns from another perspective. This gave our collective position gravitas.
We also stepped up the engagement. Simultaneous to our relationship building in the commercial sector and financial sector like ANZ, we organised for the PPSC to visit one of NZ’s leading organic regions – Hawkes Bay – and meet the whole OANZ Board. Our rationale was to demonstrate that organic is a total system from production to ingredients, inputs, products, services and yes, food, with a discerning consumer who participates in its definition and setting of standards. So, we wined and dined, visited organic viticulture, chicken, vegetable, and apple production systems at all scales, and demonstrated our world. MPs got to see first-hand what we had been talking about and got to talk directly to those most affected. This is always powerful.
The result of our networking (nationally and internationally), hosting, sharing, and lobbying was profound. We had mounting proof that the current MPI strategy was not working and was resulting in opportunity and advantage being lost. NZ’s failure to act was affecting growth in export markets.
This was an intense period of engagement that delivered results and by early 2017 we had returned to constructive dialogue with MPI – and organised a meeting with the recently appointed Minister for Food Safety David Bennet (who is a certified organic dairy farmer) and confirmed his commitment to establishing regulation. Special mention needs to go to Horticulture NZ’s Mike Chapman for hosting and arranging some of these meetings.
At the end of 2017 we had an election and a change in government. Damien O’Connor (who had been supportive since 2013) became the Minister of Agriculture, Biosecurity, Food Safety, Rural Communities, and later Trade. Being a-political and securing all political parties as to the benefit of organic had deep ramifications.
OANZ then met with Minister O’Connor who, on the advice of MPI’s policy team’s review, concluded that to protect and grow organic in New Zealand needed to have its own organic act.
Then on 20 June, our 2018 Market Report was launched in parliament for the third time. Ministers attended, as did MPs from all political parties, MPI and other ministry agencies, ambassadors, and a full array of organic practitioners. It was a great celebration; there was a sense of progress and success.
This period had been exhilarating, but exhausting on resources and relationships. The organic sector’s efforts were voluntary and draining on personal and inter-relationships on those that had led the work.
As OANZ reconciled this and went through its own internal changes our new law was being written by MPI staff. The first reading of the Organic Products Bill took place on 19 March 2020. On 5th April 2023 it was passed into law. It took just over three years with three readings, and a select committee process, before it became law.
The process has seen multiple reviews, a name change, created extensive debate both within and between the organic sector, and with and within MPI and politicians. MPI’s consultation process has improved over time. During this process it has reiterated that the organic sector is complex, diverse, not homogeneous, but of a common culture outlined in our principles of health, ecology, fairness and care.7 We remain committed, passionate, and seek practical change. We are relentless and persistent in our pursuit.
Engage to change
As the sector works with MPI to develop the regulations that will give shape to the Organic Act, key lessons from the decade include:
Moving forward
As we move closer to implementing the Organic Act through the regulations8, there is a lot for us to consider. They include:
1. What training would be required to manage the Act, regulations, standards, and auditors? What would that cost? Who is going to pay and through what system?
2. The organic standard may be owned by Government, but, who will manage it?
3. What would the future of OANZ look like and how will it be funded?
4. How will education and training be managed throughout the supply chain and by whom?
5. How will existing and new certification agencies engage with the national standard?
6. Will there be a national mark (logo)? Who will own, maintain and manage it?
7. What role will MPI and other key government agencies have in the new model?
8. How will it fit in global best practice models? Could New Zealand lead? Who would lead?
9. How do we ensure the organic sector remains both rigorous and united?
10. What other opportunities and expertise is required?
With the passing of the Act and development of supporting regulations, it is critical that we remain united, focused, strategic and work together with officials to ensure our Organic Act achieves it purpose to:
– increase consumer confidence in buying products labelled “organic”
– increase certainty for businesses claiming products as organic
– facilitate international trade in organic products.
References
Brendan Hoare is a managing director of Buy Pure New Zealand. His involvement in organics has included holding positions with Soil & Health NZ (president), BioGro (director), OANZ (founder, executive chair, and CEO) and IFOAM (world board member). He is serves on the Organic Farm NZ Council. His business is run from the OFNZ certified ‘Long Breath Farm’, on the edge of the Waitakere Ranges.
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Healing the earth through biodynamics
/in Farming and Horticulture, Free Online, Magazine ArticlesA philosophy that transcends all cultures, religions, or science has been practised in Aotearoa for nearly a century. It’s a holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming, gardening, food, and nutrition that is gaining recognition worldwide.
The content below is free to read from our latest issue, September/October 2023. This article is sponsored by Kete Ora Trust.
A holistic attitude to agriculture was initially proposed by philosopher and scientist, Rudolf Steiner, in the 1920s. Biological-dynamics (biodynamics) is a systems approach where the farm, vineyard, orchard, or garden is viewed as a living whole and each activity affects everything else.
“Biodynamics is an appropriate and powerful tool because of the way it works with different realms,” says biodynamics practitioner, Sam Weaver. “Biodynamics is inclusive, not reductive. It works with conventional science but also on a spiritual plane – that’s the power of it. It acknowledges that there are things beyond our knowledge that we can’t completely explain and certainly can’t control.
“Rudolf Steiner gave some suggestions about how those things might work, and biodynamic practitioners have been exploring and evolving those ideas ever since.”
Sam Weaver is the owner of Churton Wines, a certified organic vineyard run biodynamically in Marlborough. He says there is a growing interest in biodynamics in Aotearoa from those gardening and growing inside a Te Ao Māori framework, but the fastest expansion of biodynamics is in Southeast Asia; in places like Thailand, the Philippines and China.
There is also a lot of interest in Brazil and other parts of South America, says biodynamics practitioner and educator, Rachel Pomeroy.
“Biodynamics is compatible with any religious or philosophical system that is based on the truth of the world,” says Rachel. She spent many years teaching in India alongside her partner, biodynamics legend, Peter Proctor. Biodynamics was a system that all of India’s diverse traditions could embrace, whether Muslim, Catholic or Hindu.
Sam Weaver has given presentations on biodynamics to sommelier and wine students in Shanghai and other major cities in China. “Those audiences understood the importance of a lunar calendar; cosmic influences are still part of their framework of belief. So biodynamics is very comfortable for them. It’s inclusive, just as applicable to modern Western cultures as it is to people of different cultures and spiritual traditions.”
While biodynamics is often associated with viticulture and wine-making (see OrganicNZ May/June 2023), there are other sectors that prize heightened senses and appreciate the subtle terrior enhanced by biodynamic practices. In India, growing and blending the best tea and coffee is comparable to premium wine-making. “Professional tea tasters and blenders in India, have lifelong expertise. They are sampling teas all day and they can notice the difference in the teas grown biodynamically,” says Rachel.
Rachel’s cheerful enthusiasm and curiosity are infectious. She has a MSc(hons) in Botany and Plant Physiology and decades of practical experience with biodynamics. She is comfortable in both views and adept at weaving insights from Western science into her teaching of biodynamics. For instance, the biodynamic practice of making a cow pat pit (CPP), which has many applications and encourages health and vigour, has been found to be exceptionally high in natural growth-promoting hormones, like auxins and gibberellins.
Rachel says it would be helpful to have more science that substantiates the impact of biodynamic practices, especially given the urgent need for practices that mitigate climate change and produce food in a more environmentally-sustainable way.
But for individual farmers themselves, corroboration from Western science isn’t needed. “It would verify what they already know from their own experience. People stick with biodynamics because they like the end result. If you hate putting poison on the ground, you’re not going to enjoy your days as an industrial farmer. Those who stick with biodynamics are those making a satisfactory income while farming in a way they find satisfying and worthwhile.”
Biodynamics in Aotearoa
There are many ways that biodynamics resonates with traditional ways of knowing and here in Aotearoa it seems there is a lot of enthusiasm for exploring how biodynamic ideas reflect customary Māori systems of food growing.
Kete Ora Trust supported a two-day workshop near Wellington in 2021, co-led by Rachel Pomeroy and Dr Jessica Hutchings, a notable Māori researcher, activist, and gardener. Dozens of people gathered to share their knowledge and deepen their understanding of both biodynamics and Hua Parakore, a kaupapa Māori system and framework for growing kai.
The workshop featured conversations grounded in the Kaupapa Māori principles underpinning Hua Parakore practices and the ordering principles of the cosmos as understood through biodynamics. “Just as Ranginui and Papatūānuku ground the woven universe that is Te Ao Māori; biodynamic approaches acknowledge and harness the polarity of light and dark and the relationship between stars and soil,” said Jessica.
“Both approaches task tangata (people) with the role of rebuilding the vitality of our soils and strengthening the relationships between people and nature. Understanding ourselves as nature, and as nurturers of nature, were key learnings from our time together.”
More reading
hua-parakore.teachable.com
biodynamic.org.nz
biodynamics.com/what-is-biodynamics
papawhakaritorito.com
churtonwines.co.nz
Kete Ora Trust is a charitable organisation established in 1997 thanks to generous bequests. It invests in, and supports education and research into biodynamic, organic, and regenerative land use in Aotearoa New Zealand. Visit keteora.nz for more information about applying for grants or making a donation.