By Ellen Keeble
Organic products will sport a national label starting in December 2008 and organic enthusiasts are pleased with the new, federal legislation. But some growers are calling the new law a minimum standard that won’t change much.
The new law, to be enforced by the Canada Organic Office, a new branch of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, seeks to ensure that the groups who certify organic food growers are properly accredited.
Items deemed 95 per cent organic will bear the new logo, and those between 70 to 95 per cent may list the percentage of organic ingredients. Certification lasts for one year.
“It’s not anything new at all because most businesses are already certified,” says Ross Batstone, owner of Padgeberry Farm and member of the Ottawa chapter of Canadian Organic Growers, a national group that promotes the organic food industry.
He says he cannot name any certification groups that have standards less than the new legislation.
As a local grower, Batstone says the new regulations will not change how he operates. “It won’t slow me down, at least as far as I can see,” he says.
But the term organic is hard to define, says Michele Saumur, acting program manager for the Canada Organic Office. Consumers tend to think of organic products as more natural than conventional produce because growers try to minimize the food’s exposure to synthetic chemicals.
How growers produce an item, what fertilizers and pesticides are used and how it is shipped are just a few factors that affect whether an item will be labelled organic. The standards vary from product to product, says Saumur. But, these standards are not new.
Groups such as the Organic Crop Improvement Association have provided certification for farmers worldwide for more than 20 years, and will have to be government-accredited to certify products as “Canada organic” when the law takes effect.
The Food Inspection Agency will not accredit growers, but rather the existing organizations to monitor and certify products. Saumur says the CFIA can suspend accreditation groups if they do not meet the terms of the regulations.
“I see them as minimum standards,” says Ralph Martin, director of the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada, a publicly funded research group.
He says the legislation is good because it will be illegal for people to sell falsely labelled organic products.
Canadian farmers who export their products will benefit from standards that are consistent across the country. According to the new law, imports will have to include where the product came from on the label.
Mike Steinberg, owner of Wellington Street’s Herb & Spice Shop says the organic food industry has gained a lot of support during the last 10 years. The consumer’s desire to eat healthy and to know where food is coming from spurred this support.
Buyers will be more confident when they shop because they will see a consistent logo, he says. The logo shows the top of a maple leaf half hidden behind hills and has French and English text for Canada Organic.
But Steinberg also says the law is not as strict as it could be. Items with multi-ingredients might contain genetically modified food, which producers do not have to list on a label. He says he also wonders how consumers will be able to place the quality of one product above another if all the products adopt this logo.
Martin says there’s a number of things he would like to see reviewed in the legislation but would not specify. .
The transition period lasts two years. Growers who are certified by accredited groups can put the new label on their products during this time, but all organic products will require the label when the law takes effect Dec. 14, 2008.