Browning SteffanSTEFFAN BROWNING (Green): E Te Tiamana tēnā koe ki a koutou huri noa i Te Whare tēnā koutou katoa. Ka tū au mō ngā Kākāriki ki te kōrero i roto i te tautohetohe mō ngā whakatau tata e pā ana ki te oranga tinana oranga kai oranga noho.[Salutations to you Mr Chairperson and to you all throughout the Chamber. I stand on behalf of the Greens to speak in the Estimates debate relating to the healthy body healthy food and healthy living.]I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak in the Estimates debate around healthy soil healthy food and healthy people—effectively primary industries and food safety. In particular I want to speak to the discussion on organics that was had at the Primary Production Committee with the Minister for Primary Industries and where we are going in this country in terms of the promotion of organic agriculture horticulture and primary production overall. Mostly we need to look at what the state of play is internationally and see whether we are missing an opportunity. In 2014 the international market was more than $100 billion. It is rocketing away still. In 2015 83 percent of US families bought some organics and Aotearoa New Zealand exported $250 million of certified organic products that year an 11 percent increase on 2012. We are growing but we are not growing anywhere near as fast as we would if this Government put in the resources that other Governments do to ensure that the benefits of organics are seen in both value for exports and the environmental benefits that we can expect. Here in Aotearoa supermarket sales of certified organic products raced up 127 percent to $167 million over those few years. Here New Zealanders are prepared to pay more if necessary for organics to some degree. It needs to be affordable and the Government needs to get in behind that. Consumers want certified organic and I add that they want GE- and GMO-free kai. GE-free is the fastest-growing label in the USA—the fastest. Organic is the next one down in terms of food. People over there where they have been fully exposed to the risks and the poor nutritional quality of GE food know it and yet we have still got people here pushing for it and this Government is supporting some of it through the research funding. But where is it doing that for organics where there is actually a growing demand? I think we need to compare ourselves with Denmark. Denmark? It has not too many more people than New Zealand has a similar agricultural focus and has understood the benefits of going down the organic path. It carried on growing even through economic recessions and organic accounts for something like 7.8 percent of all food products sold there now. But what they are actually doing—the Government is getting in behind; it has got a target of 60 percent of all public food being organic. So it is doing it on a procurement basis but it actually realises that there is a benefit. In Copenhagen I think organic food is over 80 percent at this point already of the publicly available food. Restaurants canteens and public institutions have doubled their sale of organic in the last 3 years but of course Denmark is also realising an enormous benefit in terms of exports. I would like to see New Zealand go down that path and I would like to see the Government actually get in behind it instead of talking about divisiveness within a sector that actually is not as divided as is being made out. Even should it be there is no reason why the Government should not be getting in there and supporting that sector to get going. It does not even have the advantage of commodity levies like other sectors and yet the Government is expecting it to play up to a certain a level when it could actually be getting in behind. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa. Thank you.Votes agreed to.