AUSTRALIA will go it alone next month when it begins the mandatory fortification of bread-making flour with synthetic folate.

The New Zealand Government announced yesterday it would not go ahead with a joint agreement signed by the two countries about two years ago that would compel all flour millers to add between two and three parts per million of folic acid from September 13.

New Zealand's Health Minister, Kate Wilkinson, said further research was needed and a decision would be deferred until at least 2012.

Mandatory fortification has become a contentious issue in New Zealand in recent months. A survey by the Government conducted earlier this year found that 87 per cent of consumers did not want it.

The bilateral food regulator Food Standards Australia New Zealand recommended mandatory fortification of bread flour with folic acid in 2007 to help reduce the incidence of neural tube birth defects such as spina bifida.