Organic farming
Growing organic vegetables is rewarding, but making a living from it isn't easy. Rotorua market gardener Jenny Lux shares the challenges, realities and rewards of small-scale organic farming in New Zealand.
england
England has a shortage of its own organic food and a new ten-year plan to fix it. New Zealand has the opposite problem, a rulebook, and no number. What the English plan actually promises, what it leaves out, and where New Zealand stands.
Organic Wine
We counted every medal that certified organic New Zealand wines won at the big local and international shows over five years. One sparkling wine won its category five years running. One Chardonnay won the whole show three years in a row.
A Massey study found NZ children carried more of one pesticide marker than American kids, mostly from food. Studies that switched people to organic saw urine levels fall within days. What that does and doesn't prove, including the finding an organic site might skip.
A new baby, a bad news story, a weird ingredient. Twelve real reasons people start buying organic, and how much of the evidence actually holds up.
September ran on the election: a first organic pledge, two parties that answered none of seven questions, and a bacon label the government won't fix. Plus who owns the biggest organic dairy farm, why McDonald's wants our beef, and a hot sauce that says organic.
Fair question. Before you trust anything I write about food, you should know who's writing it. Thirty years of brewing, blind hop selection in the Yakima Valley, judging at the World Beer Cup, and a lifetime of asking where things come from. Here's my answer.
A curated map of 128 places across New Zealand where you can buy food you can actually trust — organic shops, farmers' markets, growers, refilleries, and suppliers worth knowing about. Not crowdsourced. Hand-checked.
Macro looks like a single organic brand. It's actually an umbrella covering certified-organic, free-range, "wholefoods," and "no artificial" products — only some of which are organic. Here's how to read the difference at the shelf.
A new piece most days. Daily investigations into where NZ's food really comes from — sent direct to your inbox.
For a lot of people, a new baby is the reason they start buying organic. Only Organic says it was the first certified organic baby food here. Who's behind it, what the pouch actually tells you, and what the research says about why it might matter.
Imagine organic food was rationed and you weren't on the list. A 1975 cookie experiment explains why that would make you want it more. Then the notice comes down, and the real numbers aren't far off.
In March Fonterra forecast a record organic milk price. The final number beat it. Put it next to conventional milk and the gap between the two roughly doubled in a single season, while the ordinary price went backwards.
An Australian charity bought supermarket fruit and veg and sent it to a lab. In New Zealand, only the government does that, 300 samples a year. Its latest report found fipronil on NZ spinach. Here's what else it found, and what it doesn't test for.
National created the world's first organics minister, then told OANZ it has no specific policy for growing organics. Mike Butterick explained why on the last Vote Organic webinar, and had a go at other parties over market access while he was at it.
Daniel Eb finished his Vote Organic interview by telling organic voters his party probably isn't their best option. Here's what the Opportunity Party offers growers anyway, where it stands on GE, and what it said on the scorecard.
Some of you asked how to pay for this. Some of you didn't wait and sent tips. Now there's a proper way to do it, and everything stays free.
NZ First ticked six of seven boxes on OANZ's organic scorecard. Mark Patterson was asked about the one it didn't, why NZ First backed the ACVM bill, and what he'd do as organics minister. His written answers promise more than he did on the call.
The Greens were the only party to tick all seven boxes on OANZ's organic scorecard. So OANZ opened by asking Steve Abel why the word "organic" hardly appears in Green policy. Here's what he said on that, GE, small growers and exports.
ACT didn't fill in the organic sector's election scorecard. On 29 September its minister Andrew Hoggard showed up to explain why, and to set out what ACT will and won't do for organics: no money, no minister, and a Gene Technology Bill he still backs.
Fenton Hazelwood asked whose name is on the box when GM rules shift. Here's the same question from the shopping trolley: a GM tomato already approved here, a gene-silencing hive treatment being trialled here, and two rulebooks that disagree about what counts.
A Massey study found NZ children carried more of one pesticide marker than American kids, mostly from food. Studies that switched people to organic saw urine levels fall within days. What that does and doesn't prove, including the finding an organic site might skip.
