A Choice: Standards for Sale or Open Access?

Summary

The Australian National Standard for Organic and Bio-Dynamic Produce was first issued in 1992, and revised editions have appeared in 1998, 2002 and 2007. It is an export standard and serves as a de facto domestic standard. It is currently freely available for download. There is a proposaal that the copyright residing in organic standards in Australia be relinquished to a private company which licences and profits from the sale of standards. This article questions this standards-for-sale model and asks whether the community and the organic cause are better served by the standard remaining as an Open Access document, rather than a pay-per-view document.