The organic food sector has become a massive source of fraud in Europe, which has naturally raised concerns in Brussels. The overarching problem is that demand for such products has multiplied by four in the past ten years, as consumers increasingly look for fresher and better quality food.
The situation has led to products on supermarket shelves being sold as organic when they are actually not. In fact, Brussels has already detected numerous cases of products distributed as organic without the proper certification and which only contain a handful of ingredients which may be considered organic.
The European Commissioner for Agriculture, Dacian Ciolos, admits that "the temptation to commit fraud is quite high, thus making it necessary for controls to be more efficient and to guarantee total transparency. If we lose the trust from consumers, it will be very hard to recover," he states.
In 2012, the total expenditure in organic products reached 19,700 million Euro; 9% more than in the previous year. The European Union has over 186,000 organic plantations that take a total of 2.9 million hectares; 5.4% of its entire agricultural acreage. Spain is the member state with the largest organic acreage (1.8 million hectares), followed by Italy (1.1 million), Germany (1 million), France (970,000) and the UK (630,000).
In the EU, organic agriculture has been regulated since 1 January 2009, when regulations in production and labelling for such products came into force. These clearly specify what the authorised techniques are for the production of such crops, which must display the EU's official organic seal.
Commissioner Ciolos wishes to promote the implementation of new regulations to strengthen controls and extend them to all actors of the chain, not just to producers, as the source for most fraud cases detected was in the processing or distribution chains.
The Commission also proposes to eliminate most of the current exceptions and derogations applicable to organic agriculture in terms of authorised substances and controls. This way, Europe aims to prevent the risk of growers receiving unequal treatment and to stimulate innovation within the sector. The reform is intended to ensure that the growing levels of demand continue to be met with the best quality produce.
Source: qcom.es