EU
Posted - July 25, 2010
EU
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European Organic Logo now compulsory
Posted - July 25, 2010
European Organic Logo now compulsory
The new EU organic logo - the so-called Euro-leaf - will now be obligatory on pre-packaged organic food products that have been produced in any of the EU member states and meet the necessary standards. This concerns Regulation 834/2007on organic production and labeling of organic products and repealing the former regulation dating from 1991 (2092/91). Other private, regional or national logos will continue to appear alongside the EU label, which will remain optional for non-packed and imported organic products, specifies the European Commission.
The text stipulates that the word
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Historic agreement on organic equivalency between the USA and Canada
Posted - September 21, 2009
Canada launches organic regulations
Submitted by the Organic Trade Association in Canada
Canada
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Organic in the Personal Care Aisle
Posted - January 12, 2009
A Pretty Controversy
By Adrian Larose
A new European
Send your comments to: editorial@organicwellnessnews.com
Canada Prepares National Regulations
Posted - September 9, 2008
Being
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Organic Cosmetics Standards
Posted - July 15, 2008
Varied Requirements, Little Regulation Bring US Lawsuit
Organic-branded cosmetics and personal care products are coming under legal question in the US. A lawsuit was recently launched by soap and cosmetics firm Dr. Bronner
Send your comments to: editorial@organicwellnessnews.com
Canadian Organics Grow
Posted - May 1, 2008
Canadian Organics Growing
By O.W.N. News Network - as printed in O.W.N. Summer 2008
Canada had 60 percent more organic farms in 2006 compared to 2001, the federal agency Statistics Canada announced recently. This represented about 3,500 farms who reported producing certified organic products, versus about 2,200 five years earlier.
Grain and hay crops were the most common, mainly for export. Various produce (combined as one category) formed the second most common Canadian organic crop.
Plenty of farms claimed to be producing via organic methods, but without certification - almost 12,000, mostly meat producers. Another 640 farms reported they were in transition to certified status.
Mandatory national organic standards still do not exist in Canada, a significant obstacle for organic producers. Voluntary standards have existed since 1999; various provincial and private standards that interpret these in slightly different ways exist. A single federal standard is to come into force in December 2008, at which point certification bodies will have to be accredited by the federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Such a standard could provide a necessary boost to organics marketing. Despite the growth in farms, Canadian shoppers’ 2006 organic purchases remained less than 1% of the approximately $50 billion they spent in grocery stores in 2006.
Mandatory Labelling
Mandatory labelling about the fruit, vegetable, added sugar and whole grain content of processed foods is not an idea that Canada will support, at least not in its current form, according to Canadian authorities.
The topic is on the agenda at the late April meeting (in Ottawa, Canada’s capital) of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling, a body that works globally to implement the World Health Organization’s food standards.
The Canadian delegation, led by the federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency, presented Canada’s draft position on the Quantitative Declaration of Ingredients in pre-packaged foods in early April. It indicated Canada would not support a WHO amendment that asks national governments to require labels to list processed foods’ content of ingredients like fruits and whole grains.
By contrast, the Canadian group’s position read, packaging need only include such information where the company’s product pitch emphasizes or describes one or more such ingredients. Such logic does not bode well for genetically-modified organism labelling either. Right to Know Legislation just introduced in British Columbia would require all GMO foods and toxic and cancer causing ingredients to be labelled, but if healthy ingredient labelling is not supported by Canadian authorities, how likely is this to receive the required support?
Send your comments to: editorial@organicwellnessnews.com
OASIS
Posted - May 1, 2008
OASIS: New US Cosmetics Standard
By Adrian Larose - as printed in O.W.N. Summer 2008
A new industry-based organic cosmetics standard is attracting attention, and criticism, with respect to the question of how to define what qualifies as an “organic” personal care product.
The clear, legislated organic standards that exist for food are rarely used to certify personal care products (including cosmetics). According to some in the organic industry, the food standards are inappropriate for such use.
The draft OASIS (Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards) private cosmetics standard for US personal care products is already backed by about 35 firms, including large conventional companies such as L’Oreal and many small American organics firms. The draft standard is available for comment on-line at www.oasisseal.org until June.
A phase-in period beginning with an 85% organic requirement - counting water, a major ingredient in most cosmetics - to end at 95% just 4 years later is part of the draft, with restrictions on allowed ingredients in the remaining 5%. That has some groups insisting OASIS present itself as a “made-with organic” standard, not simply “organic”.
“We want a tougher list of allowed ingredients,” says Ronnie Cummins, co-founder and national director with the grassroots US Organic Consumers Association. “Certain preservatives and hydrogenated and sulphonated cleansers the draft allows are of concern “, he says.
But some chemicals are obviously necessary in cosmetics, counters OASIS. “You have to use chemistry,” says group chairperson Gay Timmons, with American ingredients firm Oh, Oh Organic. “We felt that the only way you could really do that was to identify those chemical processes and those chemicals that are environmentally responsible.” The OASIS standard follows US Environmental Protection Agency guidelines on green chemical processes, notes Timmons.
The phase-in addresses hard-to-find organic ingredients such as surfactants. The group hopes OASIS participant purchases will support and increase organic production of these, allowing products to reach higher organic percentages over time.
The Organic Consumers Association insists the US National Organic Program food standards can be applied to personal care products. About a dozen companies currently have NOP certified organic personal care products, Cummins noted . Timmons advises that the number includes a few OASIS members , but the particularities of the NOP regulations do not work for all personal care categories.
A cease and desist letter has been sent to OASIS by the consumers association, asking the group not to make organic claims until its plans satisfy certain criteria. According to Timmons, such demands only undermine the standards-creation consensus process - she noted that the NOP food standard only developed after many diverse private standards were created.
“To suggest, or to demand as has occurred in this cease and desist letter, that this is something we shouldn’t do, I think it undermines the very process that has given us a fantastic law in the case of the NOP,” she says. “The federal government’s not going to regulate something so controversial that people are constantly screaming at each other.”
OASIS members are also participating in an on-going national process aimed at creating a USDA-regulated standard Timmons says, and in the meantime, OASIS makes sense. “How are you going to get 360 million people to agree? It takes a while.”
Send your comments to: editorial@organicwellnessnews.com
GMO Free
Posted - May 1, 2008
New GMO-Free Initiatives in North America
By Adriana Michael - as printed in O.W.N. Summer 2008
Non-GMO products in North America could soon be clearly differentiated from their genetically-modified competitors. Beginning in Fall 2009, a non-profit called the Non-GMO Project plans to have participating products sport a seal to indicate they have been verified GMO-free.
Founding sponsors of the project include well-known firms like Whole Foods Market and Nature’s Path. A long list of endorsing organizations is available at http://www.nongmoproject.org/endorsers/.
The program began with independent retailers concerned about clear identification of GM foods and gradually spread into a national project. At Expo West 2008 this March, a panel featuring the project attracted a packed, standing-room-only crowd, showing the organics industry’s keen interest in the GM-labelling question.
“Starting right now, we are enrolling products in the verification program,” Megan Thompson, the project’s executive director, said at the presentation. Waiting until Fall 2009 to label products should ensure the system will be running smoothly and products will have had enough time to be verified GMO-free by the project’s independent third party. “Everyone has an equal opportunity in that way to launch the seal together,” Thompson said.
The organization’s draft GM-free standard, available on-line, considers possible GM contamination of non-GM products as well as products that intentionally contain GM ingredients.
“If you are an industry member, whether you manufacture products, or you’re a grower, or a distributor, we encourage you to enrol,” Thompson said. Start by visiting www.nongmoproject.org.
To bridge the gap until the Non-GMO Project’s non-GMO seal hits the shelves, Jeffrey Smith, author of the two books Seeds of Deception, and Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, plans to publish a Non-GMO Shopping Guide. The guide will list products that have applied for Non-GMO Project verified status.
Smith’s Campaign for Healthier Eating in America: No Genetically Modified Organisms (www.responsibletechnology.org) plans to distribute the guide beginning this Summer. It should be available in certain stores, as a magazine insert and on-line.
The Campaign is run by the non-profit US Institute for Responsible Technology, which Smith founded in 2003. Its Non-GMO Shopping Guide should help consumers decide what belongs in their GM-free shopping baskets. The Campaign’s website also offers tips on what foods are likely to contain GMOs and on how to approach a GMO-free lifestyle.
Seeking a national GM-food labelling system for the United States is The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods (www.thecampaign.org). Started back in 1999 by Craig Winters, Alexander Schauss and Marlene Beadle, this group of environmental lobbyists is seeking grassroots support to convince Washington politicians that a nationally regulated GM-foods label is the best choice.
The group’s website provides links to help consumers easily e-mail politicians, retailers and manufacturers. Also key is spreading the word amongst your circle of organic-oriented contacts!
From developing a private standard, to pushing for national legislation on GM standards, to informing more consumers through GM-free guides in the meantime, the work required to bring North America’s GM foods out of the closet is finally being done.
Consumers have the power to support non-GMO products, Thompson pointed out. But before they can do so, they must be able to tell which products fit that category.
Send your comments to: editorial@organicwellnessnews.com
Fish Standards
Posted - May 1, 2008
Organic Fish: Standards May Vary
By Adrian Larose - as printed in O.W.N. Summer 2008
Contrast the isolation of one Peruvian fish farm currently producing organic trout with the debates around the regulatory definition of organic seafood, and you have some idea of the confusion now swirling through organic aquaculture.
Peru’s BioTrucha raises, harvests and processes its own organic fish in Andina, a town on Lake Arapa. The 19 families of the Asociaci
Send your comments to: editorial@organicwellnessnews.com
The new EU organic logo - the so-called Euro-leaf - will now be obligatory on pre-packaged organic food products that have been produced in any of the EU member states and meet the necessary standards. This concerns Regulation 834/2007on organic production and labeling of organic products and repealing the former regulation dating from 1991 (2092/91). Other private, regional or national logos will continue to appear alongside the EU label, which will remain optional for non-packed and imported organic products, specifies the European Commission.Organic Cosmetics Standards
Posted - July 15, 2008
Varied Requirements, Little Regulation Bring US Lawsuit
Organic-branded cosmetics and personal care products are coming under legal question in the US. A lawsuit was recently launched by soap and cosmetics firm Dr. Bronner
Canadian Organics Grow
Posted - May 1, 2008
Canadian Organics Growing
By O.W.N. News Network - as printed in O.W.N. Summer 2008
Canada had 60 percent more organic farms in 2006 compared to 2001, the federal agency Statistics Canada announced recently. This represented about 3,500 farms who reported producing certified organic products, versus about 2,200 five years earlier.
Grain and hay crops were the most common, mainly for export. Various produce (combined as one category) formed the second most common Canadian organic crop.
Plenty of farms claimed to be producing via organic methods, but without certification - almost 12,000, mostly meat producers. Another 640 farms reported they were in transition to certified status.
Mandatory national organic standards still do not exist in Canada, a significant obstacle for organic producers. Voluntary standards have existed since 1999; various provincial and private standards that interpret these in slightly different ways exist. A single federal standard is to come into force in December 2008, at which point certification bodies will have to be accredited by the federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Such a standard could provide a necessary boost to organics marketing. Despite the growth in farms, Canadian shoppers’ 2006 organic purchases remained less than 1% of the approximately $50 billion they spent in grocery stores in 2006.
Mandatory Labelling
Mandatory labelling about the fruit, vegetable, added sugar and whole grain content of processed foods is not an idea that Canada will support, at least not in its current form, according to Canadian authorities.
The topic is on the agenda at the late April meeting (in Ottawa, Canada’s capital) of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling, a body that works globally to implement the World Health Organization’s food standards.
The Canadian delegation, led by the federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency, presented Canada’s draft position on the Quantitative Declaration of Ingredients in pre-packaged foods in early April. It indicated Canada would not support a WHO amendment that asks national governments to require labels to list processed foods’ content of ingredients like fruits and whole grains.
By contrast, the Canadian group’s position read, packaging need only include such information where the company’s product pitch emphasizes or describes one or more such ingredients. Such logic does not bode well for genetically-modified organism labelling either. Right to Know Legislation just introduced in British Columbia would require all GMO foods and toxic and cancer causing ingredients to be labelled, but if healthy ingredient labelling is not supported by Canadian authorities, how likely is this to receive the required support?
OASIS
Posted - May 1, 2008
OASIS: New US Cosmetics Standard
By Adrian Larose - as printed in O.W.N. Summer 2008
A new industry-based organic cosmetics standard is attracting attention, and criticism, with respect to the question of how to define what qualifies as an “organic” personal care product.
The clear, legislated organic standards that exist for food are rarely used to certify personal care products (including cosmetics). According to some in the organic industry, the food standards are inappropriate for such use.
The draft OASIS (Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards) private cosmetics standard for US personal care products is already backed by about 35 firms, including large conventional companies such as L’Oreal and many small American organics firms. The draft standard is available for comment on-line at www.oasisseal.org until June.
A phase-in period beginning with an 85% organic requirement - counting water, a major ingredient in most cosmetics - to end at 95% just 4 years later is part of the draft, with restrictions on allowed ingredients in the remaining 5%. That has some groups insisting OASIS present itself as a “made-with organic” standard, not simply “organic”.
“We want a tougher list of allowed ingredients,” says Ronnie Cummins, co-founder and national director with the grassroots US Organic Consumers Association. “Certain preservatives and hydrogenated and sulphonated cleansers the draft allows are of concern “, he says.
But some chemicals are obviously necessary in cosmetics, counters OASIS. “You have to use chemistry,” says group chairperson Gay Timmons, with American ingredients firm Oh, Oh Organic. “We felt that the only way you could really do that was to identify those chemical processes and those chemicals that are environmentally responsible.” The OASIS standard follows US Environmental Protection Agency guidelines on green chemical processes, notes Timmons.
The phase-in addresses hard-to-find organic ingredients such as surfactants. The group hopes OASIS participant purchases will support and increase organic production of these, allowing products to reach higher organic percentages over time.
The Organic Consumers Association insists the US National Organic Program food standards can be applied to personal care products. About a dozen companies currently have NOP certified organic personal care products, Cummins noted . Timmons advises that the number includes a few OASIS members , but the particularities of the NOP regulations do not work for all personal care categories.
A cease and desist letter has been sent to OASIS by the consumers association, asking the group not to make organic claims until its plans satisfy certain criteria. According to Timmons, such demands only undermine the standards-creation consensus process - she noted that the NOP food standard only developed after many diverse private standards were created.
“To suggest, or to demand as has occurred in this cease and desist letter, that this is something we shouldn’t do, I think it undermines the very process that has given us a fantastic law in the case of the NOP,” she says. “The federal government’s not going to regulate something so controversial that people are constantly screaming at each other.”
OASIS members are also participating in an on-going national process aimed at creating a USDA-regulated standard Timmons says, and in the meantime, OASIS makes sense. “How are you going to get 360 million people to agree? It takes a while.”
GMO Free
Posted - May 1, 2008
New GMO-Free Initiatives in North America
By Adriana Michael - as printed in O.W.N. Summer 2008
Non-GMO products in North America could soon be clearly differentiated from their genetically-modified competitors. Beginning in Fall 2009, a non-profit called the Non-GMO Project plans to have participating products sport a seal to indicate they have been verified GMO-free.
Founding sponsors of the project include well-known firms like Whole Foods Market and Nature’s Path. A long list of endorsing organizations is available at http://www.nongmoproject.org/endorsers/.
The program began with independent retailers concerned about clear identification of GM foods and gradually spread into a national project. At Expo West 2008 this March, a panel featuring the project attracted a packed, standing-room-only crowd, showing the organics industry’s keen interest in the GM-labelling question.
“Starting right now, we are enrolling products in the verification program,” Megan Thompson, the project’s executive director, said at the presentation. Waiting until Fall 2009 to label products should ensure the system will be running smoothly and products will have had enough time to be verified GMO-free by the project’s independent third party. “Everyone has an equal opportunity in that way to launch the seal together,” Thompson said.
The organization’s draft GM-free standard, available on-line, considers possible GM contamination of non-GM products as well as products that intentionally contain GM ingredients.
“If you are an industry member, whether you manufacture products, or you’re a grower, or a distributor, we encourage you to enrol,” Thompson said. Start by visiting www.nongmoproject.org.
To bridge the gap until the Non-GMO Project’s non-GMO seal hits the shelves, Jeffrey Smith, author of the two books Seeds of Deception, and Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, plans to publish a Non-GMO Shopping Guide. The guide will list products that have applied for Non-GMO Project verified status.
Smith’s Campaign for Healthier Eating in America: No Genetically Modified Organisms (www.responsibletechnology.org) plans to distribute the guide beginning this Summer. It should be available in certain stores, as a magazine insert and on-line.
The Campaign is run by the non-profit US Institute for Responsible Technology, which Smith founded in 2003. Its Non-GMO Shopping Guide should help consumers decide what belongs in their GM-free shopping baskets. The Campaign’s website also offers tips on what foods are likely to contain GMOs and on how to approach a GMO-free lifestyle.
Seeking a national GM-food labelling system for the United States is The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods (www.thecampaign.org). Started back in 1999 by Craig Winters, Alexander Schauss and Marlene Beadle, this group of environmental lobbyists is seeking grassroots support to convince Washington politicians that a nationally regulated GM-foods label is the best choice.
The group’s website provides links to help consumers easily e-mail politicians, retailers and manufacturers. Also key is spreading the word amongst your circle of organic-oriented contacts!
From developing a private standard, to pushing for national legislation on GM standards, to informing more consumers through GM-free guides in the meantime, the work required to bring North America’s GM foods out of the closet is finally being done.
Consumers have the power to support non-GMO products, Thompson pointed out. But before they can do so, they must be able to tell which products fit that category.
Fish Standards
Posted - May 1, 2008
Organic Fish: Standards May Vary
By Adrian Larose - as printed in O.W.N. Summer 2008
Contrast the isolation of one Peruvian fish farm currently producing organic trout with the debates around the regulatory definition of organic seafood, and you have some idea of the confusion now swirling through organic aquaculture.
Peru’s BioTrucha raises, harvests and processes its own organic fish in Andina, a town on Lake Arapa. The 19 families of the Asociaci
