The Organic Products Bill is currently with the Committee of the Whole House before it goes for its third reading and receives the Royal Assent and is passed as law. The purpose of the bill is to increase consumer confidence in purchasing organic products, increase certainty for businesses making organic claims and facilitate international trade in organic products.
The bill, once it is passed, will allow regulations to be made which stipulate what will be required from businesses selling organic products. If the regulations are not complied with, the bill sets how these new regulations will be enforced. This includes being convicted of an offence and receiving a fine of up to $50,000 for an individual who sells a product as ‘organic’ which fails to meet the relevant standard and $250,000.00 for a body corporate pursuant to s85.
For a business to be approved by MPI to produce or sell products as ‘organic’, they will be need to comply with the new regulations. MPI states in its summary of submissions that the proposed baseline process for assessing compliance with the organic standard is that businesses must have in place an Organic Management Plan (“OMP”), obtain an initial assessment and have that OMP approved by MPI. Businesses should also be subject to ongoing verification to ensure the business is keeping within its OMP. The OMP will likely require various details to be provided, such as products covered, description of physical boundaries and site layouts, description of activities carried out, description of neighbourhood activities that could affect organic integrity and procedures for compliance and manging non-compliance, to name a few. However, this has not yet been finalised.
According to MPI’s summary of submissions regarding this new process; many growers and suppliers are concerned about potential costs associated with compliance with the new regime, especially small businesses and growers. Whereas consumers are more supportive of the regime as it could provide greater certainty of what they are actually buying. MPI have engaged and consulted with many Hapu and Iwi as to the regulatory proposals to see how best mātauranga Māori and Tikanga can be best incorporated. Hui participants were interested in various proposals, including exemptions for very small businesses from having a plan evaluated, verified and approved by MPI. Many Hui participants liked the idea that organics could be an avenue to communicate that their kai is unique and that “nowhere else in the world can produce kai like in New Zealand”.
MPI are to prepare advice to the Government on the design of the regulations and will seek approval from ministers to draft them once they have received public submissions after 9 December 2022. Essentially, MPI would like the new regulations to meet the purpose of the bill as already outlined, with public submissions taken into account. Any business people that are in the industry of organics should keep an eye out for the passing of the bill and the regulations to ensure they take the correct steps to be able to continue trading.