In Canada, new organic regulations may affect sales
In Canada, new organic regulations may affect sales
Recently approved regulations for organic foods in Canada could have a dramatic impact on how the country's organic produce is grown, imported and sold.
The Canadian Produce Marketing Association is among several industry organizations that are working to make changes to the regulations before they potentially stymie organic sales in Canada.
"We are still fighting the organic battle here in Canada to ensure a workable system," Heather Holland, senior technical manager for food safety and government relations of CPMA, told The Produce News.
Ms. Holland said that the recently ratified Canadian National Organic Standard, which she said is a voluntary standard within Canada for organic production for all foods, would form the basis of organic requirements in Canada. To support the standard, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency proposed regulations which were registered and approved Dec. 14 and are now law.
"They are trying to push regulations through to meet the European Union's requirements to have an organic system in place," she said. "On one hand, we are trying to push forward to meet European Union requirements but within standards that are being protective of our own marketplace. One of our concerns is limiting the Canadian marketplace to organic product. We would be limiting the choice for our Canadian consumers through non-tariff trade barriers and would potentially contribute to reducing the organic shelf space to organics as a whole. We wouldn't have the huge variety that we are fortunate to have today.
"CPMA has some concerns in two respects: actual involvement and consultation process, not only with Canadian organic standards but subsequently with the regulations," Ms. Holland continued. "Our concern is that the standard and proposed regulations will cause a lot of constraints and difficulties for imported products. Two examples we have raised with government are the fact that within the United States, [the] national organic program allows the use of Chilean nitrate, however the Canadian organic standard prohibits all use of Chilean nitrate. This has the potential to create a non-tariff trade barrier for the U.S. organic product.
"The other example is that within European Union organic requirements, there is an allowance of 0.09 percent genetically modified organisms if there is any genetic drift or accidental or unintentional contamination of organic product, while in Canada it is zero, so we've created a non-tariff trade barrier there too."
Ms. Holland said that while CPMA "had hoped that even though the Canadian standard may include this, there would be the ability to create equivalency agreements with the European Union, U.S. or Japan, so that even though those countries use different substances, we could recognize the organic integrity of their product as it comes into Canada, recognizing that they are different countries and they may need to do different things than we do domestically. However, we have been informed that there may not be equivalency agreements established. That really concerns us because that means that each country that [ships] fresh produce into Canada will need to grow their product under the Canadian standard, which quite frankly creates duplicate standards.
"If you are growing for more than one country's export market, then you could have three or four organic standards on your growing area which doesn't make any sense," she continued. "The whole purpose of organic certification is about the integrity of the product, not the technicalities around it. Each country has gone so far as to put an organic program in place, and we should work hard to harmonize that."
The Canadian organic regulations will be the responsibility of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's new Canadian Organic Office. Through joint industry and government consultation, a two-year implementation period was included in the final version of the regulations, which Ms. Holland said "will help all organic stakeholders to begin to assess how they will be able to export to, import from or grow product for the Canadian marketplace."
She stressed that "though we absolutely support a national organic system, it has to be able to work, and we are seeing huge concerns. What we want is an organic system in Canada that works and can be flexible enough to recognize organic product from other countries. As it is currently written, we're seeing huge challenges in the ability for this to happen. Not everyone is going to be happy, and we don't expect this to be a perfect system, but we do want to ensure that it is not going to negatively affect the Canadian domestic industry and our ability to sell organic product in Canada or our export and import markets."
The Canadian Produce Marketing Association is among several industry organizations that are working to make changes to the regulations before they potentially stymie organic sales in Canada.
"We are still fighting the organic battle here in Canada to ensure a workable system," Heather Holland, senior technical manager for food safety and government relations of CPMA, told The Produce News.
Ms. Holland said that the recently ratified Canadian National Organic Standard, which she said is a voluntary standard within Canada for organic production for all foods, would form the basis of organic requirements in Canada. To support the standard, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency proposed regulations which were registered and approved Dec. 14 and are now law.
"They are trying to push regulations through to meet the European Union's requirements to have an organic system in place," she said. "On one hand, we are trying to push forward to meet European Union requirements but within standards that are being protective of our own marketplace. One of our concerns is limiting the Canadian marketplace to organic product. We would be limiting the choice for our Canadian consumers through non-tariff trade barriers and would potentially contribute to reducing the organic shelf space to organics as a whole. We wouldn't have the huge variety that we are fortunate to have today.
"CPMA has some concerns in two respects: actual involvement and consultation process, not only with Canadian organic standards but subsequently with the regulations," Ms. Holland continued. "Our concern is that the standard and proposed regulations will cause a lot of constraints and difficulties for imported products. Two examples we have raised with government are the fact that within the United States, [the] national organic program allows the use of Chilean nitrate, however the Canadian organic standard prohibits all use of Chilean nitrate. This has the potential to create a non-tariff trade barrier for the U.S. organic product.
"The other example is that within European Union organic requirements, there is an allowance of 0.09 percent genetically modified organisms if there is any genetic drift or accidental or unintentional contamination of organic product, while in Canada it is zero, so we've created a non-tariff trade barrier there too."
Ms. Holland said that while CPMA "had hoped that even though the Canadian standard may include this, there would be the ability to create equivalency agreements with the European Union, U.S. or Japan, so that even though those countries use different substances, we could recognize the organic integrity of their product as it comes into Canada, recognizing that they are different countries and they may need to do different things than we do domestically. However, we have been informed that there may not be equivalency agreements established. That really concerns us because that means that each country that [ships] fresh produce into Canada will need to grow their product under the Canadian standard, which quite frankly creates duplicate standards.
"If you are growing for more than one country's export market, then you could have three or four organic standards on your growing area which doesn't make any sense," she continued. "The whole purpose of organic certification is about the integrity of the product, not the technicalities around it. Each country has gone so far as to put an organic program in place, and we should work hard to harmonize that."
The Canadian organic regulations will be the responsibility of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's new Canadian Organic Office. Through joint industry and government consultation, a two-year implementation period was included in the final version of the regulations, which Ms. Holland said "will help all organic stakeholders to begin to assess how they will be able to export to, import from or grow product for the Canadian marketplace."
She stressed that "though we absolutely support a national organic system, it has to be able to work, and we are seeing huge concerns. What we want is an organic system in Canada that works and can be flexible enough to recognize organic product from other countries. As it is currently written, we're seeing huge challenges in the ability for this to happen. Not everyone is going to be happy, and we don't expect this to be a perfect system, but we do want to ensure that it is not going to negatively affect the Canadian domestic industry and our ability to sell organic product in Canada or our export and import markets."
