Canada to finally hve organic food standards

Gary Sliworsky
Ag. Rep.

After years of talking about it, Canada is finally going to have a national organic food standard, and in time for a European deadline.
Plans for the Canada Organic regime were unveiled by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency(CFIA) in early September. The system will be overseen by CFIA but will rely on third-party groups to certify products are really organic.
The industry has been pushing for a national standard for the last few years after the European Union announced countries needed to have one if they were going to keep shipping organic products to Europe. The deadline, already extended once, is the end of 2006. Europe and the United States are the main export markets for Canadian organic food. The agency expects its standards would be recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as equivalent to its National Organic Program (NOP) and that would permit increased access to the American market for Canadian products.
The NOP already accredits groups to certify Canadian organic producers for export to the United States and those growers will not be affected by the change, the agency added.
CFIA is creating Canada Organic standards by transforming a voluntary certification system into a regulated one. That’s expected to be a seamless transition for organic producers in B.C and Quebec, where a mandated regime is already in place. Certification groups for the provinces will have to be approved by CFIA.
CFIA’s regulations will require that a product may be certified as organic if the methods used and substances applied in its production meet federal requirements for organic standards and permitted substances. An organic product’s labels will have to contain the name and accreditation number of the certifying body and, if said product contains more than one ag product, the percentage of each of them that are organic.
After years of discussion among organic groups and study by the Canadian General Standards Board, CFIA took a lead role in developing a national standard after Europe set its equivalency deadline, which left the industry facing the loss of a market worth millions of dollars annually in sales. In recent years there have been 30 to 40 different certifiers in the country, and when European buyers come into Canada, they’re not sure what standard they’re going to get.
CFIA said its standards will encourage international sales, protect domestic consumers from deceptive and misleading claims and support increased production. CFIA will oversee the industry, enforce the regulations and approve the groups that will accredit organic producers and certify foods are organic.

Dates to Remember
·Oct. 7 – Calf Sale, Stratton Sales Yard