Organic Agriculture in Oceania

Organic agriculture in Oceania 2012 (data 2010)

: Map organic agriculture (ha) in Oceania, data 2010. Source. FiBL-IFOAM survey. Graph: FiBL

This region includes Australia, New Zealand, and island states like Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Vanuatu.

Altogether, there were 8'500 producers, managing 12.1 million hectares. This constitutes 2.9 percent of the agricultural land in the area and 33 percent of the world’s organic land. Ninety-nine percent of the organic land in the region is in Australia (12 million hectares, 97 percent of which is extensive grazing land), followed by New Zealand (124’000 hectares), and Samoa (9’714 hectares).

The highest shares of all agricultural land are in Samoa (7.9 percent), followed by French Polynesia (3.8 percent), and Niue (3.1 percent).

Growth in the organic industry in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands has been strongly influenced by rapidly growing overseas demand; domestic markets are, however, also growing.

In Australia, the domestic market was at 947 million Australian dollars in 2009 and in New Zealand at 350 million New Zealand dollars (2009).

The biggest change in the Australian domestic market over 2009 was that the Australian Standard for Organic and Biodynamic Products was adopted and published by Standards Australia. Now that this standard has been published, industry and the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) are working towards a situation where one standard can be used for the domestic and export market. There has been no change in policy or programs by state or Federal Governments to financially supporting conversion of organic farming operations. There is, however, increased recognition of the uniqueness of
organic farming systems

In 2010, the International Organic Accreditation Service (IOAS) assessed the Pacific Organic Standard (POS) and found it, after some corrective actions, to be equivalent to the requirements of the European Union regulations on organic agriculture. This means that, according to the IOAS, the POS is suitable as a standard for the certification of operators who may wish to export products to the European Union. The year 2011, however, brought little progress in the international recognition of the POS. The year 2010 also saw the Pacific region’s first Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) become operational in New Caledonia. The PGS uses the Pacific Organic Standard (POS) as its production standard. Most of the organically certified products from the region are for export. Generally, the domestic markets for organically certified products are not very developed. Despite the policy brief on organic agriculture developed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) in 2009, the year 2011 saw no changes in legislation or policy development in the region. The policy brief aims to assist governments and others in the region develop relevant policy focuses on how organic agriculture can assist in meeting regional challenges.