On the downward spiral side, last weekend we heard that Britain will be pushing for a relaxation of rules in Europe to allow for GE crops to be grown and sold into the human food supply.

Then on Wednesday we received the latest Journal of Organic Systems, which included a paper that found a link between pigs eating GE feed and physiological changes including heaver uteri and severe stomach inflammation.

On the serious upside, on Monday we heard that Far North and Whangarei Councils are going to put in place regulations for the growing of GE crops in their regions to protect their farmers.

On Wednesday Food Safety Minister announced that among other good changes, genetic engineering will be put back in its proper place as a matter for potential consideration in the Food Bill.

And today the US Supreme Court have ruled that it’s not legal to patent human genes. While this isn’t exclusively related to GE the issue of patenting life very much is, which is why I have put forward an amendment to the Patents Bill to stop just that.

So that’s two step backwards, three steps forwards. We’re getting there!

John Key may be comfortable with many things but we are not comfortable; we are not comfortable with, among many things, John Key’s pandering to the USA’s spymasters, and the wholesale spying on New Zealanders, either already happening or intended to, and assisted by the law changes in front of Parliament now; the GCSB and Telco Interception Bills.

Peter Dunne has given us a political drama, but also gave New Zealand an early insight into some of the recent targeted illegal spying on New Zealanders, with the leaked Kitteridge  report showing 88 had been identified as spied on by the GCSB. What Dunne didn’t do was show how the Government Communications and Security Bureau’s (GCSB) involvement with the Echelon system of the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, can feed into and out of the US’s National Security Agency(NSA). The NSA designed the Echelon global surveillance system that includes the New Zealand Waihopai spy base near Blenheim.

According to the Guardian on Friday, a top secret document shows that the NSA has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, and other US internet giants. These same systems are used by New Zealanders massively on a daily basis, and the NSA has been filtering those same systems.

The Guardian stated that the document says that NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats.

In New Zealand, we have a Prime Minister, John Key who selects his mate as spy chief, and is set on legitimising his spy agencies, and his USA mates total telecommunications surveillance on us. Fiddling about on legislated oversight as the latest spying Bills get rushed through Parliament will not stop wholesale spying on everyone that uses the social media technologies and programs of the day, or in fact regular telephone calls when it suits. The intended legislation is broad, but the Guardian and possibly Peter Dunne, have shown us that the GCSB can and will spy on every New Zealander at whim.

NZ through the GCSB is meant to have been getting info from the NSA from it’s Echelon relationship and the Waihopai system. What we don’t know is how much, and if it includes this new discovered Prism arrangement.

The USA controlled Waihopai spy base must be closed, and New Zealand’s links with the United States NSA’s super surveillance system stopped.

Submissions are now open on the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill and the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Submissions close 5pm, Thursday 13 June.

The Green Party is determined to stop our intelligence agencies spying on legitimate, peaceful, political dissenters.

We support an inquiry as to whether the SIS should be abolished and whether responsibility for detecting politically motivated crime be returned to the Police.

New Zealand should close the Waihopai spy base, which operates in the interests of other countries rather than our own.

To enable better oversight, a regular parliamentary select committee should replace the government-dominated Intelligence and Security Committee, and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security should become an Officer of Parliament.

Find your closest below and join us in this exciting global event to claim back control of our food system.

Details of New Zealand Marches Against Monsanto:

Auckland – 3:00pm, Aotea Square http://www.facebook.com/events/168932459932934/

Christchurch – 3:00pm, Hagley Park https://www.facebook.com/events/257378607742003/

Wellington – 3:00pm, Waitangi Park https://www.facebook.com/events/589013124456893/

New Plymouth – 3:00pm, Corner of Elliot and Devon St West https://www.facebook.com/events/364155907021803/?ref=3

Nelson – 1:00pm, Corner of Halifax and Trafalgar Streets https://www.facebook.com/events/128929110628000/?ref=22

Rotorua – 12:00pm, Rotorua Lake Front https://www.facebook.com/events/264719693671906/

Tauranga - 12:00pm, Red Square, Devonport Rd https://www.facebook.com/events/514056908629667/

Whangarei - 2:00pm, Cameron St Mall and Bank St https://www.facebook.com/pages/March-Against-Monsanto-Whangarei/619245478103161?ref=ts&fref=ts

Hastings – 11:00am, Clock Tower, City Centre, 021 054 3492

Info on the global events:

http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/

Last Monday the US Supreme Court found in favour of Monsanto over yet another small farmer. Indiana soybean farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman bought some seeds from a grain company, where other farmers drop off their seed. He only wanted to sow cheap seed so bought what he called ‘junk grain’. It was a mixture of whatever grain had been dropped off at the store but some was Monsanto Roundup Ready Soybean.

Bowman’s lawyer argued that Bowman acquired the Monsanto seeds innocently enough and that his small operation never would threaten the company’s monopoly. But Monsanto won, winning a settlement of $84,456 for infringing Monsanto’s patent rights.

This is yet another demonstration of Monsanto’s determination to squash any small farmer that doesn’t sign up to their way of doing things.

What got him into hot water was that he saved seed from this ‘junk grain’ to plant again next season. Monstanto want to hold rights to generations of seeds forever, and we think that’s wrong.

We can avoid this happening to New Zealand farmers

By not allowing the growing of GE crops here we can ensure that New Zealand farmers aren’t exposed to risk of legal action from Monsanto on these types of issues.

But we can do more. I am gathering support for my amendment to the Patents Bill currently moving through Parliament. This amendment clarifies that patents must not be held over life.

We can all take action against Monsanto

On the 25^th of May there is a global action to march against Monsanto.

There are already events organised around the New Zealand, join them or organise a march in your city.
Auckland 

Christchurch

Wellington

New Plymouth

Nelson

Rotorua

This week the Auckland and Northland Council representatives of the PTA Joint Agency gave a multi-party briefing, following meeting Biosecurity (MPI) Minister Nathan Guy. It seems that National and MPI are effectively giving up on yet another biosecurity disaster. The bee mite varroa is well established, didymo is in too many rivers, psyllid is moving through potatoes and tomato crops, PSA in kiwifruit, Mediterranean fan worm is moving beyond Auckland and Lyttleton harbours, and now the Government appears to be throwing in the towel on kauri dieback.

More must be done to prevent entry of new pests and disease, better contain those already here, and find long term solutions for their impacts.

The Minister has been reported saying, “the best scientific evidence we have is that eradication is not possible because of its widespread nature, and there is no known cure. Our focus now is on slowing its spread and protecting our remaining disease-free forests while research continues.”

From my horticultural experience, I understand the problems with phytopthora contagions and have some sympathy for the Minister’s view. However, the small amount of research continuing is unlikely to make the breakthrough required to preserve even some of our kauri forests for later generations.

For this cultural taonga and icon of Northland tourism, the mainstay of forests where it is the dominant species, we must push much harder for a scientific breakthrough.

The research needs to be lifted by significant funding for the logical specialist provider, the government’s own forest research institute (Scion). Scion has expertise that should be focused on this issue, and the PTA Joint Agency of four regional councils, Department of Conservation, MPI and northern iwi need to be able to access that expertise and associated technology.

Kauri dieback is an example of continued biosecurity failures in New Zealand, but also a failure of how science is funded and directed. The commercial model for science and Crown Research Institutes (CRI) means that the Minister will not be directing Scion to get stuck into this problem of national significance. This leaves the PTA Joint Agency having to come to Wellington to beg for continued funding to pay Scion, so Scion can meet the Government’s expectation of a financial dividend from CRIs. The Minister will be hoping that the councils and iwi stump up the cash to feed it dividends, and seems prepared to let an icon die along the way.

It seems a contradiction, that today the Minister announced 30 new positions to help with biosecurity border protection, yet seems willing to throw his hands in the air as Tāne Mahuta and our iconic kauri forests die.

With affected trees as close as 60 metres from the famous Tāne Mahuta in the Waipoua Forest, and thousands of trees dying elsewhere, it is time for the Minister to have a change of heart and make a positive change to this year’s budget by funding the $5 million over 5 years needed to continue finding the breakthrough that we all want.

While the jargon loaded Challenge documents are a struggle to read, the message by pro-GE scientists in the primary production section is clear.

For the primary production challenge, first on the list under adaptation is “new biotechnologies”, a euphemism for genetic engineering among other things. The notes say:

“Societal (and Government) acceptance of genetic modification and other biotechnology is still not at a level that allows rapid uptake of new technologies and further societal discussion is needed as the global experience of this technology and the nature of this technology evolves.”

Using public money to sway public opinion towards unwanted and failed GE technology is not something to celebrate. Genetic engineering on a global scale has resulted in increased pesticide use, increased insect chemical resistance and chemical resistant weeds, community dislocation, and biodiversity loss.

The New Zealand community and its best value markets do not want GE products.

The primary production challenge is a missed opportunity to focus on a new vision of sustainability, using the best of organic and biological farming systems that give farmers profitability, while engaging in genuinely sustainable systems. We don’t need more of the same old agricultural science strategy of patent based silver bullets such as DCD and GE for their unsustainable dairy based mess.

The answers exist for agriculture, but those with the hands on the reins of science funding and agriculture seem fixated on old strategies with unsustainable and unwanted technologies.

We need to get the health of bees on the agenda of our Government so that we can protect these vital little insects.

I wrote to the Chair of the Primary Production Select Committee yesterday to get this on the agenda.

Here is my letter, I will keep you updated on our progress.

To Mr Shane Adern
Member for Taranaki-King Country and
Chair of Primary Industry Select Committee
Parliament House

Dear Shane,
Further to my raising bee industry issues in conversation at select committee, I am now more formally raising this with you, particularly following some recent decisions.
I am sure you are aware of the European Commission’s recent decision to put restrictions on the use of neonicotinoids across Europe due to concerns about their impact on pollinators, especially bees.
As the select committee that looks at agriculture, I feel it is our responsibility to assess this issue from a New Zealand perspective. Bees are an undervalued but absolutely crucial part of agriculture and producing food; we cannot take risks with their survival. New Zealand’s National Beekeepers Association estimates that bees contribute $5.1 billion to New Zealand’s economy.
New Zealand has 30 products containing these neonicotinoids approved for agricultural use and the Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering the application for another. It would be very useful to know what restrictions are currently in place on the use of these chemicals. The Ministers for Environment and Primary Industries have both confirmed to me that New Zealand does not do any monitoring of the use of neonicotinoids.
I am copying in the Clerk of the Committee, Ciaria Lee with the intent that you, as Chair add a notice of business to the Primary Production Select Committee agenda to discuss receiving a briefing on the health of bees.
A briefing was, in 2011, received by the Local Government and Environment Select Committee but was not resolved and so did not result in a report or any recommendations. The issue of pollinator security is more closely suited to the Primary Production committee because of the importance of pollinators to our agricultural sector, and equally the impact of our agricultural activities on bee health.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your support on this issue.

Here is what I wrote.

(note: corrected from earlier post)

Toxic agenda erodes green brand

Our clean green brand is something we need to fiercely protect, but this Government is effectively eroding it instead. National has gutted the Emissions Trading Scheme and is not signing up to further binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. In doing so they are setting New Zealand up in the eyes of the world as a nation not prepared to do our fair share for the environment. National has an ambitious agenda for mining in New Zealand but is choosing to ignore the potential impacts of this on our crucial agricultural sector. Farmers are waking up to the risks to their businesses of working to produce food alongside oil and gas wells. The Government’s latest attack on the environment is the stripping back of our crucial environmental law, the Resource Management Act (RMA).

Eroding our clean green marketing advantage through this persistent undercutting of environmental protection will take a chunk of farmers’ bottom lines. What New Zealand currently has to offer the world is clean, green, and safe food – the food that customers around the world want to feed to their kids. Food with provenance. As our markets increase their demand for these highest-quality products, New Zealand has the opportunity to step in and meet that demand. This way, we have the chance to look after our environment, produce high quality food, and get paid handsomely for it. Keeping a strong eye on a 100 percent commitment to the 100% Pure brand protects that marketing advantage. The clean green New Zealand brand is worth billions of dollars to New Zealand’s economy and as the Dicyandiamide fertiliser scare showed, that is risked if the world starts questioning how true that brand might be.

The most recent hit on the environment, in the form of changes to the RMA, is forefront in our minds. These changes are going to hit farmers in two ways. These changes will lead to less environmental protection and will diminish farmers’ abilities to take part in making decisions about what happens in their communities.

National’s proposed major changes to the RMA – the centrepiece of our environmental legislation – are about giving less meaning and weight to sustainability. This makes no sense when sustainability is becoming increasingly important to consumers of our products.

A discussion document and a bill currently going through Parliament will reduce farmers’ ability to have a say around their local council table. This is because the bill will make it easier for developments to be referred directly to the Environment Court rather than going to a council hearing first, and because the Government is proposing to make it easier for ministers to interfere and direct councils to change their regional and district plans. More decisions will be made in Wellington, instead of in local communities.

This Government is holding our clean green brand up as a nice to have but the Green Party sees it as a necessity. Our Prime Minister said that it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, and compared it with McDonald’s slogan ‘I’m loving it’. But if our international markets conclude that our brand is a sham, it will all come falling down and we will lose our marketing advantage.

If we do not have a strong environment, we do not have a strong agricultural sector. The Government’s agenda is toxic to the environment and that is not good for farmers.

It is great to see some suppliers that were previously being discarded having their organic status acknowledged again, albeit for a woeful two years in some cases. But going backwards overall by dropping Northland’s organic pickup and premium shows that Fonterra isn’t serious about promoting best practice sustainability or the New Zealand 100% pure brand across the board.

It appears just a commercial convenience when it suits.

If Fonterra is committed to the New Zealand brand, which favours sustainability, good animal welfare, and safe food free of residues, then it would encourage organics throughout New Zealand with a premium, and as capacity builds, begin processing in the regions.

Fonterra is flip flopping on whim, giving no stability to some of its best farmers, while still scrambling around doing damage control over contaminants such as DCD in its products.

Organic farmers can be the more profitable, but Fonterra seems wedded to an unsustainably produced volume based business model, encouraging the same elsewhere in the world also. A commitment towards organics by Fonterra will better advantage New Zealand farmers for the future.

Neither genetic engineering (GE) or Monsanto have anything to offer New Zealand’s reputation as a provider of the safe, nutritious, sustainably produced food that our best value customers want. Having overseas dominated PGG Wrightson following that path fails a responsible vision for Aotearoa New Zealand.

PGG Wrightson has been experimenting with GE grasses in Australia and has had a strategy of developing a patent based dominance in GE pasture crops for several years. PGG Wrightson has purchased several South American seed companies and intended to begin its GE roll out in Brazil where regulatory safeguards for GE are low and a potential huge market exists.

Monsanto has gained dominance internationally with a strong arm approach enforcing its legal rights obtained through patents on its GE seed. Many farmers have been sued for royalty infringements because of contamination or saving seed from crops containing Monsanto’s GE technologies.

Patent based GE seed has caused significant contamination disputes internationally, has restricted seed choice for farmers, is questionable in terms of animal and human food safety, and has resulted in more chemical use and less sustainable agriculture practices.

PGG Wrightson was recently  awarded  $7 million Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) government money for further seed business development. Surely the foreign ownership (Agria is Chinese owned) approved by the Overseas Investment Office would be expected to do the investment, not the tax payer at the expense of other New Zealand businesses.

Going down the GE seeds path as Wrightson and now clearly Agria want, is not useful for the New Zealand brand which has a clear international distinction of being GE Free. Monsanto has very bad press internationally and has caused much pain to farming families and communities around the world.

New Zealand has a long reputation as an excellent seed developer and can develop this further, but in a way that promotes New Zealand’s clean green 100 percent pure brand so that all New Zealand benefits – farming families, tourism and exporters.

NZ King Salmon’s withdrawal of support for the Tui Nature Reserve shows that NZKS cannot handle serious scrutiny of its environmental practices. Maintaining support following Tui’s participation in the EPA Board of Inquiry into NZKS’s recent applications for 9 new farms, would have shown an acceptance of a democratic and environmental process, as theoretically supported by the Global Aquaculture Alliance. However, NZKS’s cutting sponsorship funding to the Tui Nature Reserve, shows that NZKS’s support for environmental projects is a very shallow PR stunt.

Furthermore, the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s best aquaculture practices (BAP) certification doesn’t meet world class environmental standards that independent ecologists or communities expect, but audits to an aquaculture industry contrived standard, and the applicant’s own plan, giving unsustainable fish farming operations a green-wash tick.

It’s clear that NZKS’s PR spin is overstating the reality of its environmental practice.

The ticking off of two new foreign dairy processors into New Zealand production by the Overseas Investment Office is a huge opportunity cost to New Zealand’s biggest company and farmer owned co-operative Fonterra.

This week, Yashili International have been ticked to build a baby formula processing plant south of Auckland, and Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group have been ticked through similarly for a plant near Glenavy.

Both companies have been implicated in food safety scares, such as melamine or mercury contamination, and are relying on New Zealand’s reputation as a producer of safe and clean food.

The two companies are to spend about $200 million dollars each; money which could be raised by New Zealand farmers through a retention policy, such as Fonterra is already operating.

The purported investments show that New Zealand’s brand and product is sought after, but giving even more of the value chain to overseas interests reduces opportunities to ensure a pricing structure for New Zealand farming families and investors to build a sustainable future.

Current supply and demand price signals on the back of New Zealand’s drought show that we can achieve higher prices, allowing more sustainable farming practices, while compensating for any possible decreased total volumes. Handing over any potential value gains to foreign investors will make sustainable farming practices all the more difficult for farming families.

John Key encouraged family friend and school mate Ian Fletcher, who he had kept contact with in recent years, to apply for the chief spy position. This is a position that is directly responsible to the Prime Minister, and one that lacks appropriate external oversight.

This relationship might be fine in a different Ministerial CEO appointment, one that is open to public scrutiny, such as the Official Information Act and thorough reviews by parliamentary select committees. However with the GCSB and the Security Intelligence Service (SIS), oversight is negligible, and in fact the Prime Minister and Chief Spy may meet without even their own staff or records being kept.

The spy agencies bosses hold two very powerful positions that New Zealanders must have full confidence in, and that need a fully transparent process of engagement with absolutely no risk of cronyism. This current appointment of John Key’s friend was not transparent, and the position should have been re-advertised if applications weren’t suitable.

The Green Party want better oversight of our spy agencies. We want the GCSB to be monitored by a parliamentary select committee and for a review of the SIS to see if its work would sit better with the police.

The handling of this appointment highlights why better oversight is needed for our spy agencies. The current system is not working.

I have just had an opinion piece printed in Farmers Weekly.

Here is what I wrote:

As the list of regions being declared drought areas grows it’s distressing to see land and animals suffering from the lack of water.

This summer’s drought has cost the country $1 billion and counting and might even take us back into recession.

Farmers need relief and the short-term support offered to get through this drought goes part of the way. Rather than ad hoc measures to move feed up from the well-stocked South to the farmers who need it the government needs to play a part in securing a systematic approach to transporting the feed.

We shouldn’t make struggling farmers have to rely on importing more and more costly and unsustainable palm kernel. We also need to get real about debt relief and the impact huge levels of debt have on farmers at times like these.

But that’s just the short term. Droughts are not new – we have seen them time and time again.

Farmers and government know how to get through them. Taxpayers, in the most part, are happy to support our agricultural sector in these times. But what has changed is these droughts are happening more often. Farmers are getting hit with extremes of weather conditions, which follow on the heels of another drought, or another flood, giving farmers no wriggle room to recover. The “worst in 100 years” label comes almost every year as previous records are surpassed.

Despite what government ministers might think, the severe droughts wringing the life out of much of the country are part of an expected pattern of climate change. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) warned droughts would become more frequent and more intense under climate change.

The mainstream media, which usually don’t understand the real struggles for farmers, are covering the news of the drought but they are missing this key issue. The coverage does not deal with climate change.

And nowhere to be found is a plan from the National government to deal with climate change. That’s because it doesn’t have a plan. The government has plans to help farmers with relief from this short-term problem but it doesn’t understand the ongoing struggle our farming systems are facing.

In fact, the National government is ignoring climate change and is instead downgrading measures to tackle it, while also failing to future-proof key New Zealand industries.

The face of farming is changing with the climate. We have two challenges emerging from climate change for agriculture. The first is a challenge to reduce emissions, to play our part in the fight to avoid runaway climate change. The second is a challenge to focus our agricultural techniques and strategy on producing within the new reality and NZ’s changing climate and weather conditions.

The government will give farmers limited relief to alleviate the impact of droughts but it won’t act to control the increase of unsustainable intensive dairying or take other measures to protect increasingly scarce water resources.

We are as vulnerable as every other country but this government has given up. It has gutted the Emissions Trading Scheme and is not signing up to further binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

It’s not good enough for this National government to leave it up to other countries or future governments to pick up the slack. NZ needs to do its fair share on climate change if it wants anyone else to.

What we need is some long-term, focused action. What we have under the National government is a lack of strategy, a head-in-the-sand approach. As climate change worsens we will have more sand for it to do that in.

So what sort of farming can we do in a future that will have more frequent and more severe weather? Now is the time to look at which types of farming systems are holding up to the drought well and which aren’t.

My money is on farming systems that embrace diversity, that focus on resilience rather than highly geared systems that balance on a knife’s edge. Our agriculture sector needs to be moving to more diverse farming systems, with low external inputs, and certifiable (such as organics) sustainability measures – sustainable, resilient and valued.

Farm forestry, mixed swards, the use of fallows, crop and animal rotations, stand-off pads, and the use of measurable, sustainable soil carbon sequestration through nutrient cycling farming systems that use biological rather than synthetic fertiliser-based systems.

These are the sorts of tools that will contribute to resilient agricultural systems for the more frequent drought-or-drench weather patterns.

The twin plagues of droughts and floods affecting the way in which we can grow food and fibre in NZ are affecting the global markets. Other large producing nations, such as Australia and the United States, are feeling the effects of extreme weather on their ability to produce food in the same way. Drought struck 80% of agricultural land in the US last year.

NZ needs to start preparing for climate change. The effects are hitting now and we’re not ready because this National government wants to ignore the problem. The solution it is pushing is to rely on irrigation for the long-term, to build giant dams at huge cost.

The Green Party will continue to back better solutions, which work in the new reality of our environment and provide support to farmers without the debt. The future for NZ is not more and more intensive dairy.

A richer NZ won’t be achieved by lurching from drought to drought, flood to flood, but by having a long-term vision for the country about what we want to grow.

We don’t have an agricultural industry despite our environment, we have it because of our environment. This government is failing to lead and is intentionally turning its gaze away from the biggest problems we face.

Government must show the leadership that the “new normal” requires and take on these challenges.

I want to see an urgent reassessment of how genetically engineered (GE) foods are evaluated for food safety in New Zealand following this study which showed that regulators are making decisions on assumptions rather than facts.

On top of that, genetically engineered foods in New Zealand are rarely correctly labelled, and haven’t been enforced since 2003, making it practically impossible for people to avoid genetically engineered food.

The report, just released by Canterbury University’s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI), found that food safety risks from GE-RNA technologies are not being considered adequately by New Zealand’s food standards agency, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).

The authors state that, “changing the nature, kind and quantity of particular regulatory-RNA molecules through genetic engineering can create biosafety risks,” and that the molecules can even withstand cooking and digestion.

Just like the more than 70 GE food lines that FSANZ has ticked through as okay for New Zealanders to consume without adequate testing, FSANZ is basing its safety evaluations of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) on assumptions and the evidence of the very companies who will profit from these GE products.

It is time for New Zealand to regain control of its food standards and ensure safe food and effective labelling.

Organic production is very dear to my heart, having been an organic producer for 16 years. But aside from knowing the realities of the day to day work of being an organic producer, I also know that organics is the future for New Zealand.

Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ) commissioned this research to find out more about the state of the organic market, and they found the news to be great. The market for New Zealand’s organic products has continued to grow, even through the global recession. The authors of the report explained to the more than a hundred and thirty people gathered yesterday that globally the organic sector had average annual growths of 8 percent, New Zealand exports of organics increased by 25 percent over the last 3 years, and international demand continues to increase.

OANZ’s development of a plan for building the organic sector is great news that the Green Party will continue to wholeheartedly support. Organics is smart, green agriculture. It is about looking after the land, the people and the animals because it is the right thing to do and because it is the economically sensible thing to do. It’s about providing our farmers and food producers a good life and a fair income. Something that all New Zealand farmers deserve, especially considering how many are struggling so hard with current droughts.

It was great to have so many positive conversations yesterday with the attendees. I feel that the sector is invigorated to take advantage of the opportunities before them.

Although their target is higher than ours, Green Party policy is to set targets for organic production in New Zealand and we will be continuing to push for this.

New Zealand has great examples of successful organic production across a range of productive sectors, contributing to our clean green 100 percent pure image and to a smart green economy.

As they say in this Guardian blog, for Bhutan to go 100 percent organic will take time and has to be done region by region, crop by crop.

It also has to be done side by side with producers; working with them to establish how to reduce chemical inputs onto their farms while also increasing their profitability.

New Zealand should join Bhutan and other countries such as Sweden, which has met and exceeded an organic target of 10 percent by the year 2000, adjusting it to 20 percent in recognition of the contribution of organics to sustainability including pesticide reduction, community health, and market demand.

Beekeepers in New Zealand are really concerned about the loss of bees here, as are the big food growers including Federated Farmers because of the impact that the loss of bees (and therefore pollination of crops) will have on the production of food.

Earlier this month the European Food Safety Authority released their conclusions on the effect of three neonicotinoids on bee health.

As they say, “given the importance of bees in the ecosystem and the food chain and given the multiple services they provide to humans, their protection is essential”.

We wholeheartedly agree, which is why the Green Party have been advocating for restrictions on the use of these chemicals for years. Time for us to do something about it.

Now we have to wait for the European Commission to prepare the technical regulations on this proposal and for the European Union member states to agree to them.

They do note, however, that the area of land certified as organic still makes up just 0.9 percent of global agricultural land. I am reading that as a good opportunity for a lot more growth in organics – the other 99.1%.

There is definitely demand for change. This month also saw 25,000 people demonstrating in Berlin against industrial agriculture. I particularly like their chant “If you persecute farmers, animals and bees, you won’t become MPs!”

I absolutely agree with the Association of German Dairy Farmers that only if “farmers and citizens stand up together for reform of agricultural policy can we keep our farms operating and ensure that at long last we produce healthy food under conditions of fairness.”

With this preceding the announcement of the suspension of sales and use of the nitrification inhibitor dicyandiamide after traces of the chemical were found in milk it’s very clear that we need a farming system that ensures us clean, safe food.

That is something organics can provide.

That strict compliance of GE experiment controls is being enforced at AgResearch is very good news, and may be the way of the future there. If so, then AgResearch will need to reinstate the Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) monitoring at its GE animal facility at Ruakura, which was to ensure that risky pick up of genetic material from AgResearch’s experiments wasn’t crossing over to soil organisms.

We would like to see all GE field trials closed, as GE does not have a place in our environment.