Australia’s peak body for certified organic producers, Australian Organic Limited (AOL), has welcomed the Federal Government’s support for a new national food security strategy and says the organic industry is well positioned to be a major contributor to the plan. Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Julie Collins, announced that if re-elected, an Albanese Labor Government would commit $3.5 million to develop the Feeding Australia strategy, to boost the security and resilience of the country’s food production systems and reduce financial strain on households ..read more

Australia’s certified organic industry has released a detailed and costed list of election priorities ahead of the federal election which have the potential to more than double the annual value of the $2.6b sector. Once considered a niche sector, certified organic agriculture has evolved into a mainstream contributor to Australian agriculture and export markets, underpinned by the industry in Australia boasting more than 50 per cent of the world’s certified organic farmland. Yet Federal Government policy settings have not matched pace with the industry ..read more

The Organic Development Group, which represents nine of Australia's largest organic industry organisations, says momentum is building towards historic new consumer protections following the release of a Senate Committee Report declaring the current lack of regulation leaves the sector open to greenwashing and exploitation. The Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee has spent the past two months examining the National Organic Standard Bill, which proposes to follow the lead of every other OECD nation and introduce a legal definition of organic goods. The Committee recogn ..read more

Australian Organic Limited has provided a federal pre-budget submission, requesting investment in key areas to help support our industry's growth potential. These requests are broken down into three key pillars, as detailed below ..read more

Australia’s organic industry has welcomed the broad-based and emphatic support for the introduction of domestic regulation, with more than 95 per cent of submissions to a Senate Inquiry in favour of the move. The Senate Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport is currently assessing the merits of the National Organic Standard Bill 2024, which was introduced to Parliament in November to define the word “organic” and close a loophole that has allowed unscrupulous operators to label products as “organic” with as little as two per cent organic content ..read more

Some of Australia’s leading organic businesses and certifiers have warned a Senate Inquiry that Australia risks going from world leader to world laggard if the National Organic Standard Bill is not passed in Parliament next year. The proposed legislation, introduced to Federal Parliament last month, follows years of advocacy by the organic industry to create a legal definition of the term “organic” for the Australian market ..read more

A parliamentary report has affirmed the potential of Australia’s organic industry as a driver for export growth in the Southeast Asia region, putting forward an unprecedented range of recommendations to support our nation’s organic operators with market access. The ‘Trading North’ report follows the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture’s Inquiry into the role of Australian agriculture in Southeast Asian Markets, which emphasised the strategic and economic importance of the region to Australia ..read more

The certified organic industry continues to be on the agenda in Canberra, with peak body Australian Organic Limited (AOL) appearing at the latest public hearing of the Joint Standard Committee for Trade and Investment Growth’s Inquiry into the understanding and utilisation of benefits under Free Trade Agreements ..read more

NEVER-before-seen protections for organic consumers and the promise of lucrative new export markets for producers are among the benefits of proposed legislation introduced to Federal Parliament yesterday. The National Organic Standard Bill, a Private Senators’ Bill tabled by The Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie would, if passed, make Australia the final country in the OECD to create a legal definition of the word “organic ..read more

The peak industry body for Australia’s certified organic industry has sounded the alarm over a proposal to drop labelling requirements for gene-edited products saying it will reduce transparency for consumers and increase the risk of unwitting contamination in the strictly non-GMO organic sector ..read more