Tasmania's Organic Spring: The 99.8% Opportunity

Summary in the original language of the document

Tasmania has experienced seventy years of organics advocacy (from 1946). Yet Tasmania has just 0.2% of its agricultural land certified organic. Converting the state to organic could take 35,000 years at the current rate - and who has that kind of time? In contrast, Australia has 7.1% of its agricultural land as certified organic. Australia has more organic land than any other country. Tasmania has 4003 certified organic agriculture hectares and 79 certified organic operators (compared to the Australian total of 27.1 million organic agriculture hectares and 2075 certified organic operators). This suggests that there is a massive opportunity - the 99.8% opportunity - for Tasmania to embrace the ethics, practices, and economic benefits of organic production. With the impending certification of a number of organic dairy properties in Tasmania, is the state on the cusp of an Organic Spring? OMG (Organic Milk Group) has just achieved certification of its first dairy farm and has just started supplying Woolworths supermarkets with organic milk. Moon Lake has three dairy farms at or near conversion to organic and plans direct organic milk exports, Hobart to China. A new map of organic farms in Tasmania is presented.