Last month Biological Farmers of Australia Ltd (BFA) launched their new standards known as the Australian Certified Organic Standard (ACOS) 2010. This is an updated version of the Australian Organic Standard 2006, which clarifies and updates the requirements for new and emerging organic sectors such as cosmetics, forestry, ethical trade-organic, pet food, fibres and aquaculture production.

The BFA will soon launch a consumer version of its new Standard that will define production points of interest for individual organic products and product categories.

‘The booklet will enable shoppers to make quick purchase decisions by allowing them to understand, at a glance, the production differences between organic and non-organic, for example, the advantages of buying organic versus non-organic honey, meat or eggs’, said Dr Monk. ‘This new summary standard will be available free of charge from April 2011 from the BFA website alongside the full version of the Standard’.

Source: BFA press release

For more information see www.bfa.com.au

No country produces all the organic products that they need. For example, Australia, like most countries, needs to source organic products from around the world and this is particularly true of processed products that combine multiple ingredients. Many of the current national compliance regulations for the importation of organic products make it uneconomical for processors to go through the extra time and expense to get the products recertified so that they comply with their national organic regulations. This becomes even more difficult if the processor or producer wants to export these products to multiple markets with different regulatory compliance regimes.

Only the larger producers or processors with economies of scale can afford the multiple certifications that are needed to access these markets. The smaller family farms and businesses are becoming locked out these markets, which goes against one of the main principles of organic agriculture – The Principle of Fairness.