Kia ora koutou and welcome to the June edition of MPI Organic News.

As winter truly sets in, we hope the weather across the motu is favourable for the organic kai and products you are growing, producing or processing over the next few months.

A reminder that submissions on the National Organic Standard are due tomorrow! The Organics Project team is working hard to collate and review the submissions received to date and we wanted to say thank you for all your engagement throughout the process. 

We have received agreement from the Minister to present the updated Standard Regulation proposals and a definitions list from 30 June - 14 July.  To find out more around the consultation and further development work please read below.

For those of you attending Field Days we will have Katrina O’Connor from the National Organic Standard development team attending. Katrina will be heading out into the field speak to you! Look out for her in the New Zealand Food Safety tent from 11:00 am – 2:00 pm.

The consultation on the proposed National Organic Standard has provided helpful and constructive feedback. We have greatly appreciated the involvement from everyone in the sector throughout this process. With a number of changes made so far and the addition of a definitions list, we have sort agreement from the Minister to present these changes to the sector in a short second phase of consultation.  

The updated Standard Regulation proposals and a definitions list will be available on the consultation webpage from 30 June - 14 July. We will be running a couple of virtual drop-in sessions during this consultation period. The proposed dates and times for these are:

Friday 7^th July 10:30am – 12pm

Monday 10^th July 1pm – 2:30pm

Register your interest for either of these sessions by emailing us at: OrganicsConsultation@mpi.govt.nz

Please note that we will be consulting on Supplementary Notices and Guidance at a later date.

Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) are now drafting the process regulations for approving organic businesses and recognising third parties to carry out evaluation and verification.

Information sheets that set out the new system are now available on the MPI website – Changes to organic products law

Are you an input manufacturer that supplies products for use in organic production? We would love to chat!

We are starting discovery work on inputs and how the assessment system will work in the new regime. We are aiming to set up discussions with input manufacturers over the next couple of months. If you would like to be involved in these please email us at: OrganicsConsultation@mpi.govt.nz