Kia ora koutou, welcome to the first edition of MPI Organic News for 2023!

We hope that you were able to spend some time with loved ones over the holiday period and were able to get a well-deserved break. The turbulent weather we have been experiencing in parts of the country has brought about a lot of challenges and we hope those most impacted are able to recover quickly and our thoughts are with you.

We have a busy few months ahead of us in the development of the organic regulations and standard. For more details on how to get involved please see the sections below.

Many of you who were involved in the Technical Working Groups for the National Organic Standard last year will know the mahi that has already gone into considering the technical production rules that will work best for our domestic organic standard.  Below are some statistics gathered which reflect this journey so far.

The team have now moved into consolidation of this feedback and are writing up the draft proposals across all topics. We are aiming to consult on these proposals in April 2023 and will be inviting your feedback during this time. We will be looking to hold some drop-in sessions and will come back to you with a schedule closer to the time.

The Organics Sector Advisory Council held its second meeting virtually on 12 December. The focus of this meeting was the Process Regulations re-engagement and feedback received to date. The next meeting is to be held in person on the 15 March. We will use this time to further refine the role of this council, will provide a summary of what we heard through re-engagement meetings and submissions and where we have landed in terms of the process regulations proposals, and test proposals content and format for the National Organic Standard consultation.

Re-engagement on the proposed process regulations for approving organic businesses and recognising third parties to carry out evaluation and verification wrapped up at the end of 2022. A big thank you to everyone who managed to read the information sheets, come to one of our information sessions or who took the time to submit feedback. In total, 55 people attended at least one of the information sessions and we received 16 written submissions on the proposed regulations.  Your feedback has been extremely useful and we are in the process of summarising this as we continue to prepare proposals for consideration by Minister O’Connor and Cabinet.

Once the summary of submissions is complete, it will be published on the organic legislation page of the MPI website, and we will let you know when that it is available.

The Organic Products and Production Bill began the Committee of the whole House stage on 25 November 2022. The stage allows Parliament to further debate the contents of the Bill and any supplementary order papers that have been lodged. You can view any supplementary order papers, including the one lodged by Minister O’Connor, on the New Zealand Legislation website. More information on the changes proposed in Minister O’Connor’s supplementary order paper is available here.

The House went into recess before Committee of the whole House could be completed. This stage will be resumed in the current sitting year. You can keep an eye on the progress of the Bill, and watch replays of any speeches made during the various stages, on Parliament’s website.

The team have developed the following infographic to provide clarity on the components of new Organic Products and Production regulatory system, how they fit together and will be made into law. This infographic will be made available on MPIs website here.