Hanspeter Schmidt, Manon Haccius

European Food and Feed Law Review, Volume 15 (2020), Issue 1, Page 2 - 17

Regulation (EU) 2018/848 is in the first place a restatement of the present EU law on organic food and feed, as laid down in Regulations (EC) 834/2007, 889/2008 and 1235/2008. Secondly, it provides for a number of surprising changes: It demands a more ‘combat-ready’ coexistence of organic farmers with their conventional neighbours and it ascribes a high relevance to traces of agrochemicals from conventional farming found in organic products. For organic imports from non-EU–Countries, the principle of equivalence is replaced by the requirement of strict conformity with the EU rules. The scope of application of the new organic regulation is extended. The ‘Objectives and Principles’ are now directly applicable and binding, when techniques for processing organic products are chosen. Ion exchange and adsorption technologies are prohibited in organic processing. The new regulation provides for an automatism of pesticide trace > official investigation > organic freeze > food waste. This appears to be mitigated by the draft for a Delegated Regulation introducing new procedural steps of ‘initial assessment’ and ‘reporting limit’ for the analytical findings before or below which no action by an official body is triggered. These two elements promise to provide for more proportionality in the dealings of official bodies with traces from conventionally used pesticides in organic products. Keywords: Traces of Conventional Agrochemicals; Essential Oils; Salt; Mate; Traditional Plant Preparations; T-Shirts; Cosmetics.

Hanspeter Schmidt

European Food and Feed Law Review, Volume 14 (2019), Issue 1, Page 15 - 28

There is a new EU organic food law. It will go into effect as of 2021 and requires deep changes to the practice of organic farmers. It provides for complex rules for dealing with traces of agrochemicals in organic products. Organic farmers are now to draw up and maintain “precautionary measures” against pollution from conventional agriculture. Regulation (EU) 2018/848 introduces a triade of legal consequences for each case where a pesticide trace is reported in an organic food product, however low this may be: (a) an official investigation; (b) a provisional marketing stop; (c) or permanent organic decertification, where the newly required measures to avoid the contamination from conventional organic farming have not been implemented. A new organic trade culture will be needed.