Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Movement towards any harmonised organic regulatory system will require several small but
concrete steps that will enable competency assessments and trust building among the various
parties. Although urgent action is needed, building such a model will take several years.
Balancing the local and the global in organic standards-setting
A second challenge for the future of global organic regulation is to find a way to balance the
need to provide consumers with a guarantee that certified organic products produced anywhere
in the world meet stringent organic standards with the need to ensure that organic standards
are adapted to local production realities. Given the power imbalances, the general trend has
been for the jurisdictions with major import markets to require compliance to their own
organic regulations rather than engage in a longer and more time-consuming process of
searching for equivalence.
To further complicate the situation, when developing country producers seek to sell into two
or more different import markets with different regulatory requirements, they must comply
with the most stringent aspects of each regulation, which may be in contradiction. EcheverrÃa
(2004) compares the EU and USA regulations on the subject of manure utilisation:
The EU regulation indicates limits to the amount of nitrogen per year/hectare,
forbids factory farming origin of manure and says that it should be composted but
does not restrict in any way the composting method; while the USA regulation
does not forbid factory farming origin or nitrogen use, but it gives very strict
instructions on the composting method to be used. The result is, as one can
imagine, that our farmers end up having to comply with the most restrictive
aspects of both regulations
In addition to the lack of harmonisation, imposing import country organic requirements
onto production systems in developing countries with very different farming and socioeco-
nomic conditions creates additional problems (Parrott and Marsden 2002, Raynolds 2004).
As an example, EU requirements include lists of permitted inputs that are based on accepta-
ble organic practices in Europe. However, what works as an input in one farming system may
not be available, appropriate or widely used (and therefore tested) in another context, leading
to contestation; for example, on the use of substances from indigenous botanical extracts,
guano and peat to even copper-based substances (Harris
et
al
. 2001, Parrott and Marsden
2002).
While IFOAM continuously struggles to maintain this balance, important lessons can be
learned from its continuously evolving model, developed through experience in setting and
revising international organic standards and in managing an international accreditation system
that operates in over 70 countries. Given that IBS are baseline standards for standards and
require f fleshing out by an accredited certification body to become standards for certification,
this has allowed for a balance between the need for consistency in standards in a globalised
world and the need for f flexibility in adapting standards to local conditions. For better or worse,
it has also encouraged growth in the number of public and private organic standards for certifi-
cation, especially as IBS are not regarded as the only international reference standard.
Although one IFOAM standard is considered necessary for the movement, IFOAM has
supported the establishment of voluntary national or regional standards based on the IBS
through consensus based processes to reduce the proliferation of standards (IFOAM 2000).
While this has not yet been widely adopted by IFOAM regional groups, initial movements are
occurring. For example, AgriBioMediterraneo is a regional group of 146 IFOAM members
from three continents and 16 Mediterranean countries whose activities include the develop-
ment of regional standards (ABM 2005). Regional standards would seem to fit well into the
