Brussels, 18/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 13 March, the Standing Committee on Organic Farming (SCOF) approved changes proposed by the European Commission to the legislation on organic farming. The aim is to reinforce and harmonise control systems in the EU in order to minimise the potential for fraud. In June of last year, the Court of Auditors of the EU flagged up major faults with national checks on the traceability of organic products. The amendments, which take the form of an implementing act, are ,likely to be adopted by the Commission under written procedure by the beginning of April.
The Commission is currently working on a broad revision of the rules governing organic farming within the EU, which will bring forward proposals by the end of this year.
The amendments approved by SCOF aim to reinforce the exchange of information between the operators and control authorities of the member states (in particular when irregularities are identified). Each control authority will have to carry out a 5% compulsory minimum percentage of sampling every year and a provision has been included to facilitate the use of electronic certification. The changes also aim to reinforce the supervision of control bodies and annual inspections, and to bring in harmonised measures to be applied to operators by the control bodies in each member state.
The SCOF decision follows the scandal which broke in late February over the possibility of large-scale fraud in Germany, where egg producers were found to have sold eggs under an organic label which had been laid by hens kept in overcrowded conditions. Detecting fake organic products is one of the main priorities of the re-examination of this policy.
The percentage of surface area used for organic farming in the EU has risen (to 7.2% on average between 2005 and 2010). The Court of Auditors' analysis concluded that the member states were deficient in matters relating to the certification and traceability of the products. These shortcomings must be resolved for consumers to have “sufficient guarantees as to the effectiveness of the functioning of the system”, the Court said. It also sheds light on problems in the system which governs imports of “equivalent” organic products from third countries.
Currently, nearly 2% of food bought by European consumers are certified organic products, and 200,000 farms (2% of the total) are considered organic producers. Under the current rules, foods may only be classed as organic if they contain at least 95% organic ingredients. In order for imported foods to be considered organic, there has to be equivalence with European standards in terms of the rules and certification authorities of the producer countries. At the end of 2010, public money spent on organic farming within the framework of the agri-environmental measures stood at over €690 million. (LC/transl.fl)