An organic label indicates to the consumer that a product was produced using certain production methods. In other words, organic is a process claim rather than a product claim. An apple produced by practices approved for organic production may very well be identical to an apple produced under other agricultural management regimes.
5. Several countries and a multitude of private certification organizations have defined organic agriculture. In the past, differences in these definitions were significant but the demand for consistency by multinational traders, has led to great uniformity. The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), a non-governmental organization internationally networking and promoting organic agriculture, has established guidelines that have been widely adopted for organic production and processing.
6. Most recently, the Codex Committee on Food Labelling has debated “Draft Guidelines for the Production, Processing, Labelling and Marketing of Organically Produced Foods”; adoption of a single definition for organic agriculture by the Codex Alimentarius Commission is expected at its next meeting in June, 1999. According to the proposed Codex definition, “organic agriculture is a holistic production management system which promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. It emphasises the use of management practices in preference to the use of off-farm inputs, taking into account that regional conditions require locally adapted systems. This is accomplished by using, where possible, agronomic, biological, and mechanical methods, as opposed to using synthetic materials, to fulfil any specific function within the system.”
7. Organic agriculture is one of several approaches to sustainable agriculture and many of the techniques used (e.g. inter-cropping, rotation of crops, double-digging, mulching, integration of crops and livestock) are practised under various agricultural systems. What makes organic agriculture unique, as regulated under various laws and certification programmes, is that: (1) almost all synthetic inputs are prohibited,3 and (2) `soil building’ crop rotations are mandated.4
The basic rules of organic production are that natural inputs5 are approved and synthetic inputs are prohibited. But there are exceptions in both cases. Certain natural inputs determined by the various certification programmes to be harmful to human health or the environment are prohibited (e.g. arsenic). As well, certain synthetic inputs determined to be essential and consistent with organic farming philosophy, are allowed (e.g. insect pheromones). Lists of specific approved synthetic inputs and prohibited natural inputs are maintained by all certification programmes and such a list is under negotiation in Codex. Many certification programmes require additional environmental protection measures in addition to these two requirements. While many farmers in the developing world do not use synthetic inputs, this alone is not sufficient to classify their operations as organic