Kia ora koutou and welcome to the October edition of MPI Organic News!

It certainly feels like we are gaining some momentum with a number of Wellington-based events held in September including the Inputs workshop and the first Advisory Council meeting. The National Organic Standard workshops ended on a high with immense energy levels, passion, and great contributions from attendee’s. Once again, we thank you for the time commitment and the knowledge you have shared over the past few months. We look forward to continuing the development and refining of the standard through the current and upcoming virtual drop-in sessions and workshops. 

Read below to find out about how we are continuing these conversations on standards development and what’s happening across the other areas of work as well.

The last face-to-face technical working group (for Inputs) met in Wellington on Wednesday 21 September. The technical working groups will now move into a phase of virtual workshops (for topics that were not able to be covered at the face-to-face workshops) and virtual drop-in sessions (to review material and feedback that came out of discussions at the face-to-face workshops).

A calendar of virtual drop-in sessions and virtual workshops has gone out to technical working group members. The calendar includes sessions scheduled through just before Christmas. If the proposed times do not suit and an evening or weekend timeslot works better, please let MPI know. A reminder that these sessions are for you, so please sign up to have your say on the National Organic Standard. It will be drafted from the feedback out of this working group process. Please attend the drop-in sessions to ensure that we have captured the feedback from the face-to-face workshops correctly and that you’re comfortable with elements of the standard as they’re being developed.

The first meeting of the Organic Sector Advisory Council occurred on Thursday 22 September in Wellington. Note the change in name, the council discussed and agreed a number of items, including what the group will be called. The council discussed and confirmed membership, as well as what the roles and responsibilities of council members will include.

The organisations who have nominated people to be part of the council are as follows:

Apiculture New Zealand, AsureQuality Kaitiaki Kai, Aquaculture New Zealand, BioGro, Certified Organic Kiwifruit Growers Association, Demeter New Zealand, Dairy Products Safety Advisory Council, Kelmarna Gardens, Orakei Gardens, Organics Aotearoa New Zealand, New Zealand Organic Meats, Organic Dairy & Pastoral Group Of New Zealand, Organic Exporters of New Zealand, Organic Farms New Zealand, Organic Traders Association, Organic Winegrowers New Zealand, The Soil and Health Association of New Zealand, and Te Waka Kai Ora.

Below is a photo of council members (with the exception of members from the Dairy Products Safety Advisory Council and the Organic Traders Association who were invited to join after a discussion on membership) after their first meeting.

Mahi has continued in the regulations space and we are excited to be able to share the updated regulations proposals amongst you all over the next month. We have designed a set of information sheets, each of which focus on a different aspect of the proposed regulations. Informed by the feedback we got from the organic sector and teams within MPI, the sheets will set out what the details in the regulations could look like and what they will mean for operators. We will send out an email letting you all know when they are available on the ‘Changes to organic products law’ webpage of the MPI website. The email will also let you know how to get any comments you may have back to MPI.

To accompany the information sheets, we will also be hosting a number of online information sessions. At the sessions, we will further explain the proposals and also test their workability with you. Invitations to the sessions will be sent out over the coming weeks, and we will run a couple of drop-in sessions covering the overall approval process that will be open to everyone. We have made sure to work around the Technical Working Groups, which we realise a number of you are already busy attending and sharing your expertise. A likely schedule for the information sessions is:

We are open to hosting some of the meetings in the evening if that works better for growers and farmers (especially the drop-in sessions on the overall approvals process). It would be great if you could let us know in the next couple of weeks if that works better for you, by emailing OrganicsConsultation@mpi.govt.nz .

The Bill is awaiting its Second Reading in Parliament. The timing of the Second Reading is determined by Parliament and you can check where the Bill is at on Parliament’s daily Order Paper here.