Regulations for production and processing

At present there are no regulations for production and processing of organic foods in New 

NB There are no figures available for the area of land under certification in New Zealand. 

Zealand. As mentioned in section 13.1.5, discussions with the New Zealand and Australian organic industry, begun in 1999, are continuing through 2000 and it is hoped that a national standard will be implemented in the next 12 months. The initial prime motivator for such a standard from a New Zealand perspective is to maintain market access into European and soon Japanese markets. This has now grown to include protecting of the term organic . Japan has indicated that it will require evidence of equivalence to their standards by April 2000. 

There is a history of problems associated with a small but significant percentage of New Zealand exports to Europe that have not met entry requirements or have required documentation that was not correctly supplied from New Zealand. On more than one occasion New Zealanders have had to board a plane to Europe to expedite entry of New Zealand product sitting on the docks. 

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