`New Organic Logo in Europe - Olive Oil Times
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New Organic Logo in Europe

By Olive Oil Times Staff
Jul. 8, 2010 10:07 UTC

New EU rules on organic food labelling includ­ing the require­ment to dis­play the new EU organic logo, entered into force on 1 July, 2010. The so-called ​“Euro-Leaf” will now be oblig­a­tory on pre-pack­aged organic food prod­ucts that have been pro­duced in any of EU Member States and meet the nec­es­sary stan­dards. Other pri­vate, regional or national logos will con­tinue to appear along­side the EU label. The logo stays optional for non-packed and imported organic prod­ucts. In addi­tion to the logo, the new labelling rules also include the com­pul­sory indi­ca­tions of place of farm­ing of the prod­ucts’ ingre­di­ents and code num­ber of the body that had been in charge of the con­trols. Operators have a two-year tran­si­tion period to com­ply with these new label­ing rules. Another change is the intro­duc­tion of EU rules for organic aqua­cul­ture for the first time.

“Our hope is that the new EU logo can develop into a widely recog­nised sym­bol of organic food pro­duc­tion across the EU, pro­vid­ing con­sumers with con­fi­dence that the goods are pro­duced entirely in-line with the strict EU organic farm­ing reg­u­la­tions”, accord­ing to EU Commissioner for Agriculture & Rural Development Dacian Cioloş. ​“I hope that these changes will give a boost to the organic farm­ing sec­tor, but also fur­ther enhance con­sumer pro­tec­tion”.

The ​“Euro-leaf” design shows the EU stars in the shape of a leaf against a green back­ground pass­ing two clear mes­sages for con­sumers: Nature and Europe. The design has been reg­is­tered by the Commission as a col­lec­tive trade mark. Designed by German stu­dent Dušan Milenković, the logo emerged as the clear win­ner of an on-line poll, fol­low­ing a com­pe­ti­tion aimed at EU art stu­dents. The win­ner and the run­ners-up in this com­pe­ti­tion will be hon­oured at an offi­cial award cer­e­mony in Brussels on 19 July 2010, organ­ised to coin­cide with the July 19/20 Conference on the future of the Common Agriculture Policy.

New Organic aqua­cul­ture con­di­tions

The new rules also cover organic aqua­cul­ture pro­duc­tion of fish, shell­fish and sea­weed. The rules set EU-wide con­di­tions for the aquatic pro­duc­tion envi­ron­ment, the sep­a­ra­tion of organic and non-organic units and spec­ify ani­mal wel­fare con­di­tions includ­ing max­i­mum stock­ing den­si­ties, a mea­sur­able indi­ca­tor for wel­fare. The rules spec­ify that bio­di­ver­sity should be respected, and do not allow the use of induced spawn­ing by arti­fi­cial hor­mones. Organic feeds should be used sup­ple­mented by fish feeds derived from sus­tain­ably man­aged fish­eries. Special pro­vi­sions are made for bivalve mol­lusc pro­duc­tion and for sea­weed.

Commenting on the new rules, Fisheries & Maritime Affairs Commissioner Maria Damanaki said: ​“Europe-wide rules for organic aqua­cul­ture have become a real­ity. They will give con­sumers a bet­ter choice and are a boost for sound and envi­ron­men­tally accept­able pro­duc­tion and a viable alter­na­tive to the more tra­di­tional inten­sive approach. The EU is the biggest mar­ket in the world for seafood and it is fit­ting that Europe should play a lead­ing role in estab­lish­ing com­pre­hen­sive rules in this domain. Among the pri­or­i­ties for my term are sus­tain­abil­ity and social cohe­sion for the fish­ing and aqua­cul­ture sec­tors. These new rules for organic aqua­cul­ture are a mile­stone by inte­grat­ing these pri­or­i­ties into aqua­cul­ture”.

In 2008 an esti­mated 123 cer­ti­fied organic aqua­cul­ture oper­a­tions were in oper­a­tion in Europe, out of a total of 225 such farms world­wide. These accounted for almost half world pro­duc­tion of 50,000 tonnes in 2008. The top five Member States in pro­duc­tion terms are the UK, Ireland, Hungary, Greece and France. The top species is salmon.

Further details on the new rules can be found and the EU organic logo can be down­loaded on the EU Organic Farming web­site: www.organic-farming.europa.eu

For the Conference on the future of the Common Agriculture Policy see http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/cap-post-2013/conference/index_en.htm

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