Organics is now a worldwide movement but family owned farms are being replaced by corporations. With concerns that the organic community is quickly losing its integrity, Mäori organic farmers are looking to traditional indigenous knowledge to gain a competitive advantage. Mere Takoko reports.
When there’s something strange lurking in your local organic friendly supermarket, who are you going to call? If you live in Manhattan or make a living walking down the catwalks of Paris, chances are you’ll have to give your neighbourhood multinational corporation a tinkle. But if you live in the Aotearoa, there are plenty of experts who can confirm your suspicions that buying certified organic in 2009 may no longer mean that you are buying a sustainable product.
Brendon Hoare, who was instrumental in the design and set up of Organic Aotearoa New Zealand, sends a convalescent message to an industry at a crossroads: “Organics is so successful now that being organic is increasingly becoming a brand, not a cultural practice of attitude. Our culture, by becoming popular, is being eroded.”
The synthetic inputs of industrial agriculture may have left but its mythology has not – explains the long time organics campaigner. The organic way of living, once shunned by the mainstream, is now literally in Vogue. Fashionistas around the globe are lining up to experience the pure bliss of natural body care products. But high growth markets like the beauty industry are causing a shift back to the industrial, mechanistic processes of conventional farming as more and more family owned farms are replaced by big corporations. Now more than ever, smaller organic producers in New Zealand will have to search for ways to maintain a competitive advantage.
“International indicators for sustainability are moving very fast. Where we were once leaders in environmental standard setting and integrated approaches, we find ourselves struggling,” says Hoare.
As organic farms become larger and less bio-diverse, certification leaders in Aotearoa are now looking to integrate fair trade, sustainable forestry, marine systems, ecotourism and biodiversity conservation. The national Mäori organics authority, Te Waka Kai Ora, is currently developing Organic certification that incorporates these environmental indicators as well as indigenous principles of food production.
“We have found that Organics systems are very compliant with tikanga Mäori. What are missing are the intrinsic values,” says Chairman Percy Tipene.
With more and more business commentary talking about sustainability and social responsibility, the organics authority sees the development of certification based on indigenous values as bringing a new level of sophistication to indigenous branding and marketing approaches. But in order to capitalise on that, the authority believes having an umbrella system that can pool indigenous knowledge together will make way for a distinctly indigenous organic trade.
“Mäori have developed unique farming techniques and practices informed by Polynesian culture that are suited to the country’s ecological context. Consequently, Mäori farming practice and its underpinning cosmology express an entirely unique knowledge system,” adds Hoare.
Te Waka Kai Ora have won a bid to New Zealand’s Foundation for Research, Science and Technology for a grant of NZ$600 thousand to develop the new certification and plan to begin meeting with Pacific leaders to see how the model can provide credibility for their indigenous villages and communities who want to continue growing traditionally, but are not necessarily certified.
“If all Pacific countries overlay our certification standards and control their worldview and cultural uniqueness, then that will help to open up a global market that appreciates all indigenous validated and verified products,” says Tipene.
Long time organic dairy farmer, Cathy Tait-Jamieson, is calling for support for a Pacific certification system to rival other market-recognised systems such Fair Trade organic. While Mäori already have sophisticated indigenous branding and marketing approaches, she say’s Pacific grown products could one day be instantly recognised by consumers as a brand that promotes ecological and cultural survival.
“Pacific cultures inherently reflect the values quickly being lost by conventional organic farming. A return to indigenous food production will promote a renaissance of indigenous knowledge and a global awareness that our cultures are inherently sustainable,” she says.
The BioFarm director has indicated that she will pilot the indigenous certification system on a new line of products once its released by Te Waka Kai Ora. She agrees with Hoare that corporate organic farmers will come under increasing scrutiny from consumers who have a more educated understanding of humanity’s effect on the planet. Out of the chaos of the recession, she believes that more and more corporations will be forced to look for new directions.
“Indigenous peoples will have a competitive advantage over corporations and multinational companies if we can capture all our indigenous knowledge. Corporations don’t have our stories, it’s that simple.”
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