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

As the upper North Island continues to clean up after the cyclone and floods recently experienced, we acknowledge that for many growers, operators, and whānau it continues to be challenging times. Thank you to everyone in the organics space that are helping each other out in the sector and the community.

You may find the following information relating to adverse events and emergencies helpful. Please feel free to share with your friends and whānau if you think they would also benefit from this.

Cyclone Gabrielle recovery: advice, support, and funding

While parts of MPI is putting in a great amount of work on the ground to support those directly affected, we are continuing to work through the development of the organic regulations and standard throughout March. For more information and details on opportunities to get involved please see below

Drafting of the National Organic Standard is progressing well. As we are working through the draft proposals, we are checking the content with subject matter experts across MPI including colleagues in ACVM, Animal Welfare, Assurance, Food and Fisheries teams to ensure we are bringing our collective knowledge of these different areas together and to align with other legislation.

There are opportunities to get involved and provide feedback on these draft proposals over the next couple of months. We held sessions with the technical working group members this week and will be testing proposals with the Organics Sector Advisory Council the following week. Public consultation on the National Organic Standard is on track to commence in April and submissions will be welcome during this time.

Mahi on the process regulations for approving organic businesses and recognising third parties to carry out evaluation and verification continues to progress. We have used your feedback to inform the final development of the proposals for consideration by Minister O’Connor and Cabinet.

We are also in the process of summarising the feedback we received from you last year. 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.