Tim Marshall
Australian Standard 6000 (AS6000): History, status and relevance to the future of the organic industry The first organic certifications in Australia were implemented in the early-mid 1970’s by the Organic Food Movement (OFM), a short lived South Australian venture, and the BDRI (Bio-Dynamic Research Institute), which is still in existence. Neither organisation produced a significant written standard. OFM used a twopage document and BDRI used the International Demeter Standard, but it was not widely disseminated, even among certified operators. The first written organic standard in Australia was produced by the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Australia Ltd. (NASAA) in 1987, and it was followed by the
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BioLogical || a journal for change
Biological Farmers of Australia (BFA) Standard in 1988. BFA transformed into Australian Organic Ltd. (AOL), and these two ‘private standards’ are still in existence. In 1990 the Department of Agriculture established the Organic Produce Advisory Committee (OPAC) which produced the National Standard for Organic and BioDynamic Produce (the National Standard), first published in 1992, and the current version is 3.7 available here. The National Standard was the first organic standard in the world to be fully operational (USA and EU standards were under development but not
implemented). The National Standard was mandated under the Export Control (Organic Produce Certification) Orders, by the Federal Minister of Agriculture, and applied to exports only. It became the default ‘domestic standard’, there being no other available document, but it had no legal force. In 1989 NASAA had made an approach to the ANZ Food Authority, the precursor to Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), to request regulation of the word organic, and the Department of Agriculture made a formal request in 1992. Both were refused.
