Potential Trade Barriers Could Impact On Organic Producers
7 October 2002
New Zealand organic exporters could face international trade barriers if "buy-local" messages in importing countries
develop into protectionist policies.
MAF's director of Biosecurity and Science Policy, Peter Kettle, has recently returned from an OECD conference on organic
agriculture in Washington.
He says a worrying trend for New Zealand organic producers is the strong message to international consumers that buying
locally produced goods is best.
"Certainly the trend is towards buying locally produced organic goods because local production is regarded as more
sustainable in terms of energy-consumption used in transportation and so on," Dr Kettle says
In both Europe and America - key markets for New Zealand organic products - this could result in protectionist policies
with each country responding to its own organic producers and, in many cases, putting in place policies to protect them
from market forces.
Dr Kettle says while New Zealand has the advantage of an international market perception of being clean, green and
healthy, this advantage could be off-set by the imposition of real trade barriers in the guise of sustainability
arguments.
"At the recent Washington conference much of the focus of the attendees from the 23 countries was on economic,
environmental and social aspects of organic production with the emphasis being very much at local level."
ENDS