Chapter 9 - Rules, Red Tape and Reality

I was about halfway writing the original Chapter 9 for the Moringa Farm Chronicles, but something pretty big has come up and I think it needs the coverage more.

It’s been quite a week of running a farm and a business. Something unexpected happened, something I never predicted in the 9.5 years of running this shop. Something that shook me and made me really re-evaluate this whole venture.

And of course, it’s government issued.

Apparently I Can’t Do That

It’s always lovely getting an email from Biosecurity or the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. It can only be good news, right?

Well, it turns out FSANZ decided Moringa is no longer allowed to be sold as a human food in Australia. So my email was full of entertaining things like “don’t import Moringa or we will destroy it”. You know, the standard email you get when you’re pretty much getting shut down.

So overnight, without warning, I am told (and not even by the department making the calls) that I can’t do what I have been doing for 9.5 years anymore. Pretty rude, not even a candlelight dinner before I got screwed.

But what else would you expect from government departments? After all, it’s been their job to make life for business difficult at the best of times. I just never saw this one coming. It would not have hit so hard if there was a notice period or something similar so we could at least wind down.

There has to be a solid reason for this decision though, right?

The Reason for the Lunacy

In a nutshell, it is because FSANZ can’t decide if Moringa is safe for humans or not. They were not provided with enough evidence in relation to its safety so that is it. Banned.

Here is the official documentation if you want to have a bit of a read:
https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-12/A1294%20Rejection%20report.pdf

Here is the official summary of said report:

“Following consideration of all available data provided in the application and the peer reviewed literature, FSANZ was unable to establish the safety of Moringa oleifera (leaves, immature seed pods and oil) for human consumption and has therefore decided to reject the application.”

A company in Noosa tried to get the novel food classification removed so it could be a more mainstream food item in Australia. It wasn’t a bad idea. Just seemed to be poorly executed. FSANZ did not have enough evidence to establish its safety, so they effectively hit the nuclear codes on an emerging Australian industry instead. Completely normal behaviour.

It’s Murphy’s Law. Things were going well, so naturally something had to come along and ruin it. I am quite convinced I am the walking embodiment of Murphy’s Law.

The Real Victims

I can sit here and write about my annoyance at this situation until the goats come home. In particular, mine, since they seem to keep escaping. John and Deere are settling in well, but they prefer not to eat weeds and go for plants hundreds of meters from their home instead.

The real victims in this kind of decision making are the people I work with. The farm I have used for nine years now… what do they do? They can’t sell to me anymore and I was their business.

My logistics team of nine years. They facilitated and took over all the hard work moving product from country to country and were truly a blessing to work with. They even came to my wedding.

My sister runs the NZ branch of Moringa Products and this will decimate her business. I can at least pivot to Australian based goods, she won’t be able to.

I have a small business that does my 3PL (third party logistics) and has done an amazing job for about five years now. She is the reason the products get sent so fast. This will inevitably be a pay cut for her as well. I can only pray it’s not too bad.

Each year I sponsored the Shitbox Rally Cancer Council event, raising money for the Cancer Council. How do I continue this when my business just got gutted?

Each month I donated to the McGrath Foundation helping their nurses provide their incredible support to cancer victims. Especially breast cancer victims, which I hold so close to my heart. That was a fun email to write, telling them that I have to stop for the meantime until I can work out what to do next.

You see, it’s not just my business that gets affected by these outrageous decisions. Do you think they look at this type of flow-on effect before justifying their existence with poor laws? Personally, I don’t. The report they wrote reads to me “This is too hard to work out, so we won’t”.

Well Australia and East Australia (New Zealand) get to join Brazil in being the only countries in the world to ban Moringa for human consumption.

So Where to From Here?

I’m not sure if my frustration is coming out with my writing or not. I presume it is. I am only jotting down the more PC things that are running through my brain at the moment. This chapter has gone through a lot of drafts, mainly to remove my anger and bitterness.

I remember watching Clarkson’s Farm and how he is constantly bewildered by the government. Partly because he is a celebrity, but mainly because he fights back one way or another. Normally with malicious compliance. I always wondered what must go through his head with these kinds of rulings and I am starting to think I understand.

What a kick to the guts. But I will continue on, things are just going to look different from here on out. My main product line just became extinct because of people making decisions detached from the reality of running a business. I am no quitter, and I will pivot. Into what? I don’t fully know just yet.

The negative pieces to this chapter are mainly over now. What point is there in sitting and dwelling on this, getting angrier and angrier? Even writing is raising my blood pressure, but there is always opportunity with change and I need to look at that for survival.

JUST REMAIN CALM!!!

I spent the weekend trying to escape this situation and luckily for me I had my mate, his kids and his father come up for the weekend. Not only are they a great family to hang around with, my knowledge of farming improves tenfold when they are here.

They have lived on acreage and done farming for over twenty years. And they are more than happy to show me how to operate machines like tractors, show me irrigation, water filters, electric issues, machinery issues and so much more. They understand math so much. I learnt so much about the inedible PI and its job with running irrigation pipes. Being friends with them is akin to what I imagine being friends with a group of encyclopedias would be like.

They deal in positivity and reality, which is something I needed a good dose of. It takes a while for hard news like that to settle before my brain kicks in and starts working out future ideas. And they kept me busy while they were here.

We fixed grey water pumps, tried to fix broken pumps, sorted out some tractor issues but most importantly, they taught me to use a chainsaw.

Rip Rip Woodchip

Who would have thought, using a chainsaw could be so exhilarating. What is it about cutting into a tree and watching it fall that feels so satisfying? Learning to use a chainsaw has given me a complete new set of skills to work on.

I can make wooden fence posts now, remove the dead and dangerous trees that are around the property and my favourite: making chopping boards. The chopping boards you buy today just fall apart and break. Now I have some heavy-duty ones drying out and getting ready for sanding.

I’ve seen chainsaw art, people cutting bears and other animals out of thick tree stumps. But can they make an uneven chopping board like me? I doubt it. Luckily my friend Mark cut a straight one for my wife first. It’s probably going to be the main chopping board now…

Using the wood on my property also allows me to build a new and much bigger enclosure for John & Deere to work out how to escape from. I watched them walk over a fence today, just crushing it beneath them.

It also allows me to make posts to expand my fence line for Moringa and soon to be other agriculture adventures without spending a fortune on star pickets or wooden posts from Bunnings.

A whole new world awaits with my little Ryobi chainsaw, as long as that world only lasts an hour or two at max before the battery dies and needs recharging. But it doesn't matter. I can get heaps of uneven chopping boards made in that time.

My Farming Future?

Things are up in the air at the moment. But diversifying my product range is key here. I can’t throw all my eggs into a moringa basket any more. There are other things to grow. I have forty acres after all, and once my irrigation is running a bit more smoothly, nothing will stop me growing and working on new products for our shop.

As I said before, there is opportunity in these decisions. I went onto social media for advice. Reddit, which was about as helpful as you’d expect, threw shade and called me a snake oil salesman. But then I had a video go somewhat viral on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok which provided a much-needed positivity boost and a lot of sales.

People had some great ideas. I was messaged thousands of times. My email list said some of the nicest things I could imagine and it just helped snap me out of this funk I found myself in. As of writing this, I am getting close to a combined one million views. I hate being in front of the camera, but that’s just another small fear I need to overcome.

I do have an amazing customer base and I appreciate every single message and email I have received from them. This is not the end of the world, nor is it the end of my business. It’s an annoying hurdle that I do truly believe I will not only jump over, but propel myself even further in this industry.

About the Author

Joel Molloy is the founder of Moringa Products Australia and the writer behind The Moringa Farm Chronicles, documenting the wins, mistakes, setbacks and lessons of building a farm and business from scratch in rural Queensland.

From machinery mishaps and water woes to regulation shocks and product pivots, Joel shares a first-hand account of what it takes to keep moving forward when the rules change mid-game.