MPI putting honey at risk - O’connor

Labour is calling for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to be split back up because it’s ‘‘too big’’ and failing industries like the lucrative manuka honey business.

Damien O’connor, Labour’s spokesman for Primary Industries, said the 2012 merger of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Fisheries and the New Zealand Food Safety Authority was meant to be about efficiency.

‘‘In my view it’s simply too big an organisation to have the expertise required in these very technical areas of food safety, of biosecurity, and other areas that are crucial to our economy.

‘‘I think MPI is struggling to maintain the capability to do this kind of work,’’ he said.

O’connor’s comments come on the back of an interview with MPI’S deputy director of general regulation and assurance, Bryan Wilson, who acknowledged there was a problem with the testing of manuka honey, which MPI is working to fix.

In April, the Government released its scientific definition to authenticate New Zealand manuka honey, which is the first step leading to a standard. It followed damaging claims in UK trade magazine The Grocer that consumers were being misled over what they are buying and at vastly inflated prices.

The honey industry currently earns $242 million in exports a year, of which manuka honey makes up about 80 per cent. But some producers say up to 20 per cent of the purest honey – worth about $10m to $20m – is failing MPI testing.

Wilson told Radio NZ yesterday the fact some ‘‘tweaking’’ needed to be done to the testing wasn’t an issue.

‘‘When you go through a new testing regime you need to adjust laboratory methods to take account of samples that behave differently – it’s part of a normal process.

‘‘There’s potentially some interference with some of the chemicals so we’re looking at how that might be fixed and think we might have a solution,’’ Wilson told RNZ.

While he agreed it was puzzling that some of the purest honey was failing the test, he said MPI would allow re-testing for producers who think their product should have passed.

Whether or not producers would be reimbursed would be done on a case-by-case basis, but MPI wouldn’t compensate for any ‘‘stop on exports’’.

But O’connor said MPI has dropped the ball in the past and appeared to be lacking the capability to deal with manuka honey testing.

‘‘There’s been statements that MPI’S been slow to move in this area and other individual players have put some science to work to try and identify the best way of crediting true manuka honey. MPI have challenged that.

‘‘The select committee looked at the whole situation and in the end left it to MPI to develop what should be an enduring and credible standard but there’s still questions from what we’ve heard recently,’’ he said.

‘‘I just hope they’ve got it right because we have at risk what is an emerging and very significant industry for rural New Zealand.’’

Consultation on the new testing does not finish until June 12.