- 3.2.1 Developments in Canterbury’s organic agriculture
- 3.2.2 Stakeholder groups in the Canterbury organics industry
3.2 Organic agriculture in Canterbury
3.2.1 Developments in Canterbury’s organic agriculture
Canterbury was an important region in the development of a national organic agriculture movement. The most significant step was the establishment of the Biological Husbandry Unit at Lincoln College in 1977. This unit has had an ongoing symbolic and practical importance for organic agriculture both nationally and in Canterbury. Alongside the Unit, the Canterbury Organic Producers Group, formed in 1980, but declined in importance as the NZBPC became more prominent at a national level. The Christchurch based Whole Foods Producers Cooperative was also created in 1980, later restructured into NZ Biograins, based in Ashburton.
Major changes began to occur in the structure of organic agriculture in Canterbury after 1990. Prior to this point a few isolated companies specialising in fresh vegetable exports had marketed small consignments of organic vegetables overseas. By 1990/1991, however, five factors combined to prompt Wattie Frozen Foods Ltd (WFF) to experiment with the production, processing and marketing of organic peas. These five factors were:
- a need to experiment with products that could maintain market access by decreasing the likelihood that chemical-residue barriers could be imposed on vegetable products;
- a general downward movement in bulk vegetable commodity prices leading to a desire to target niche markets;
- a means of diversifying company products without investing in expensive new plant and equipment;
- direct enquires from Japanese buyers as to the availability of ‘cleaner and greener’ products; and
- notification from established WFF conventional vegetable suppliers that they were converting to organic production.
The first harvest of organic peas was delivered to the WFF Hornby factory on February 5th, 1991, and having decided to expand the program to include other growers the number of contracted pea suppliers rose to 18 in the 1991/92 growing season. The success of these first two years (Campbell 1996) prompted WFF to expand its program to include more growers in different regions and a greater range of vegetables (sweetcorn, carrots, beans, potatoes).
Over the period 1991 - 1996, WFF steadily increased the volumes of organic vegetables grown and continued to recruit new growers who were supported through their Grow Organics With Watties campaign. By 1996, there were 50 organic growers (nationally, 20 in Canterbury) supplying organic vegetables to WFF with a land area of 700 hectares in organic production providing 7% of WFF’s total vegetable exports.
The imposition of a recognised certification system was a key part of the WFF program, and the company made a decision to rely purely on suppliers who were certified under the BIO-GRO standards.
During this period of time, other companies also emerged which were supplying both the local Christchurch market and also export markets. Only Organic (NZ) Ltd. has developed a baby food product for both local and international distribution, while companies like NZ Biograins in Ashburton concentrate on the domestic distribution of organic cereals.
Campbell (1996) reviewed the companies and co-operatives operating in organic food retailing and exporting, as well as those companies like the St Martins New World supermarket which keeps a permanent supply of organic produce available to its customers as a byline to its main retail activities. This review suggests the size of the market for organic food in Christchurch could be estimated to be between NZ$650,000 - $750,000, with the higher figure probably being more accurate if uncertified organic production is included. These data were collected in 1995, and evidence from other retail markets in New Zealand (Saunders et al. 1997) suggest that the 1997 figure is significantly higher in Christchurch.
3.2.2 Stakeholder groups in the Canterbury organics industry
Prior to 1990, the organic agriculture movement involved two main stakeholders - the growers/members/adherents of the organic agriculture social movement, and the formalised structure of licensing and certification through the NZBPC/BIO-GRO NZ. While the first of these was a relatively unstructured social movement, the NZBPC/BIO-GRO increasingly moved towards a professional formalised structure. As such, the greatest possible tension between these two groups was the effect of increasingly formalising the organic standards and certification procedures. This formalisation made financial demands on the NZBPC/BIO-GRO. It also led to a more formal process by which organic production was defined - both through the standards and on the farms. The main watershed occurred in 1994 when the raising of inspection fees caused a number of smaller or philosophically concerned growers to leave the certification system. Those that remained tended to support the more formal direction being taken by BIO-GRO NZ. The two groups could be distinguished by their status as certified or uncertified growers with retail outlets in Christchurch.
Alongside these two stakeholders, exportation of organic food created another two distinct stakeholders in the industry. First, the arrival of a large company like WFF in Canterbury (reflected by a similar development with the NZ Kiwifruit Marketing Board in the Bay of Plenty), introduced a major corporate player into the industry. This did not meet with the approval of many long term organic producers and non-farming members of the NZBPC. To them, a large corporation posed the threat of: a ‘capture’ of the organic industry; the potential to undermine the organic standards; or an undesirably commercial and pragmatic orientation towards producing organic food. These concerns also involved a philosophical opposition to the concept of food exporting as an activity incompatible with sustainable agriculture due to the large consumption of fossil fuels by export transportation.
Organic food exporting also introduced another stakeholder group - conventional growers who were converting portions of their farms to organic production in order to supply WFF contracts. Some members of this group did not like the certification process and often were involved in conflict with BIO-GRO inspectors.
The arrival of organic food exporting in Canterbury and the professionalisation of BIO-GRO NZ created a situation where three types of growers now participate in the industry: long term non-certified growers; long term certified growers; and new certified growers. However, these three positions do not always correspond with the way growers think about organic production. Fairweather and Campbell (1996) found that it was not enough to simply categorise growers as ‘long term’ organic or ‘new’ organic. Instead two general orientations to organic production were apparent - committed and pragmatic - depending on whether or not growers would continue with organic agriculture if the premiums for organic produce disappeared. These two distinctions did not always correspond directly with the ‘long term’ or ‘new’ status of organic growers. Some long term growers were becoming increasingly pragmatic, while some new growers were definitely embracing wider aspects of the organic philosophy.
In sum, Canterbury is a region where key stakeholder groups have used a combination of local geography and agricultural circumstance to develop an evolving, and commercially viable organics industry. It was this area that served as a case study for the current inquiry into knowledge and implementation of organic farming practices. Details of the study are outlined in the following section.
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Kay Brown
Sector Performance Policy
MAF Policy
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
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NEW ZEALAND
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