"Your children and family pet may be paying the ultimate price for New Zealand's desire to continually increase farming productivity" says Debbie Swanwick, Spokesperson, Soil & Health - Organic NZ. 
Cadmium levels in NZ soils are far higher than what is allowed under European standards. Levels here are what Europeans would deem dangerous for children and stock older than 20 months (containing high levels of cadmium) are used in pet food. Cadmium accumulates in the kidney and liver and is linked with breast and testicular cancer.

 
In 2012 14.2 billion dollars was spent on healthcare in New Zealand. The government is currently considering outsourcing food supplied to hospitals, a move that will compromise the quality of food delivered and increase the cost of healthcare in this country.

In New Zealand 'certified' organic food is the best labelling system available for the consumer," says Debbie Swanwick, spokesperson, Soil & Health - Organic NZ. Four certified labels exist in New Zealand; Biogro, Demeter, AsureQuality and OrganicFarm.

 
GMOs pose a 59 billion dollar threat to the NZ economy and ratepayers whose councils have failed to protect them against risk.That is the total dollar value of our agricultural, forestry, fisheries and tourism sectors, agriculture being worth thirty billion dollars, forestry, five billion, fisheries, four billion and tourism twenty billion. 

More than $60 billion is spent each year on diet and weight loss products in the US alone yet America has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world. A new movie unveils that hidden ingredients in food, especially targeted at dieters, is making people fat.

 
Consumer demand has resulted in the eighth largest food and drug retailer in the US, Whole Foods Market, demanding their suppliers label food containing GE ingredients by 2018. 
 
Over 50 countries in the developed world require that GE food be labelled yet the US and Canada are amongst the few who still deny consumers the right to know what is in their food. 

 
Federeated Farmers vice president William Rolleston suggestion that genetically engineered ryegrass will alleviate the current drought in NZ is misleading.  In a drought research has proven that organics outperform conventional and GE crop yields by two to three hundred percent.
 

The Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan has announced its intention to be the world's first 100% organic nation in the next ten years. Mostly Buddhist farmers, their dictate is to live in harmony with nature. "It is an enviable approach to economic development and one which we should emulate," says Debbie Swanwick - Spokesperson, Soil & Health - Organic NZ. Now the race is on to be the first nation to achieve that claim to fame.

Results in the latest organic market research report show that organics is moving from the fringe into the mainstream.  The report is to be launched at Parliament on Wednesday 5th March 2013.