New Zealand's Organic Food Industry
The organic industry is coming of age in New Zealand. There are large numbers of successful commercial farms, gardens and orchards that have undergone conversion to organic in the last five years. A few years ago, many conventional growers considered the organic industry to be a little radical, but times have changed and organic is moving into mainstream culture.
This movement of organics into mainstream has been helped by the involvement of corporate and regulatory agendas and a huge market trend towards organic. The general public in New Zealand is increasingly demanding fresh organic produce, for both health and environmental reasons.
The critics of organics are now more likely to be backing GMOs (genetically modified organisms). But there is a very strong pro-organic and anti-GE movement in New Zealand. Although the organic movement in New Zealand is not as strong as it is in Europe it is stronger than in Australia.
This strong overseas demand means New Zealand agriculture stands to gain from the international export market for certified organic produce. The value of organic exports from New Zealand in the 1999-2000 year was more than $60 million, a 77 percent increase on the previous year. The organic industry's domestic and export sales total between $200 million and $250 million a year – mostly fruit and vegetables.
New Zealand's clean and green image, combined with recent food scares in Europe including BSE, salmonella, foot and mouth, dioxin scares and 'swine fever' will provide a huge opportunity for New Zealand organics. Organic food producers are hoping to piggyback on this clean, green image to build a $1billion export industry within 10 years.
The entry of corporate capital has resulted in the concentration of organic production to fewer, larger and more 'efficient farm units' and has, according to some changed standards in the industry. The entry of Hienz Wattie into the organic market in New Zealand had resulted in an increase in the area committed to organic cultivation, but the number of farms has declined.
Organic farms in NZ can be classed into two types – permanent crops, and rotational crop systems. In the latter type the export crop is rotated with other crops. The main limitation for this type is finding premium markets for all of the crops grown organically within a rotation.
The general public and growers alike are concerned about the potential long-term effects of chronic, low-level exposure to the combinations of chemicals in non-organic food and in the air and water as a result of chemical farming practices. Research findings support a change to organic as the only sensible way to go – not just for our own health but for the health of the entire ecosystem in which we live.
This concern about the toxic effects of chemical farming is not new. The 1960s saw a rise in concern, and action to stop chemical food production. Rachel Carson, in Silent Spring (1962) said:
'For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.'
The situation is far worse today than in the 1960s. Governments around the world, including New Zealand's, approve for sale and use, a wide variety of agricultural chemicals, despite uncertainty over their interactions with other chemicals in everyday life. Most of these leave residues in our food, either as a compound, or of their breakdown substances. Chemical testing for toxicity cannot provide any guarantees of the safety of chemicals due to science's limited knowledge of ecosystems, low-level adverse effects, and of cumulative and combined effects.