Organic Certification and the MDGs: Possible Linkages and Impacts

A. Standards Covered in the Review

The standards included in this review cover a cross-section of national, regional, and private organic standards imposed by major trading partners. The decision to focus on these standards, instead of focusing on the domestic standards developed and used by developing countries, was based on two considerations, namely:

1. Producers from developing countries must comply with these international standards if they wish to acquire a respectable share of the global market for organic products; and
2. These standards are more likely to be advanced and extensive with regards to the subject areas covered, including those related to social justice. As such, they have a potentially broader impact on poverty reduction and on the MDGs.

With the IFOAM Basic Standards used as the benchmark, the following standards were evaluated vis-à-vis their possible impacts on the MDGs.

National/Regional Standards:

1. Council Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 for organic production
2. The US National Organic Program (USNOP) Regulations
3. The Japan Agricultural Standard (JAS) of Organic Agricultural Products

Private Standards:

4. Bio Austria
5. Bio Suisse
6. Demeter International (Germany)
7. Naturland (Germany)
8. Soil Association (UK)

B. Data Sources on Organic Certification

Apart from the standards themselves, this review made extensive use of information archived in www.organicrules.org. This comprehensive database contains information on the differences between national and private organic standards in Europe, as well as some entries on the USNOP.

C. Main Findings on Organic Certification and MDGs

Despite variations in specific standards, there was a high degree of concurrence on the basic principles governing crop production, including crop rotation, soil fertilization, and the use of synthetic inputs.

On the other hand, there was less concurrence on environmental management issues such as ecosystem management, habitat protection, and energy and water conservation. The reviewed national standards tend to indirectly address these issues through crop production standards related to crop rotation or soil fertilization. In contrast, certain private standards address these issues more directly.

The area of least concurrence regarded principles and standards for social justice, which is crucial in strengthening the impacts of organic certification on MDGs in the areas of education and health. Although social justice is covered in the IFOAM basic standards, among the eight national and private standards reviewed, only the Naturland standards discussed it.

As expected, private standards tend to be more extensive and stricter compared to national standards. National standards tend to put more stress upon the basic treatment of regulations imposed and subject areas covered. Table 1 [ PDF 32.3KB | 5 pages ] below presents the main findings of the review.

In general, the conditions set forth in organic certification concern the elimination of agro-toxic use in production systems, have an impact on four MDGs: mainly MDG1 (poverty and hunger) and MDG7 (environmental sustainability), and to a lesser extent, MDG4 and 5 (child and maternal health). The contribution of organic certifications on other MDGs is not specific since national organic standards hardly include provisions for social aspects. Most social impacts of organic certification, such as education improvement due to higher income and increased social capital through organizational activities of farmers' groups, are achieved indirectly.

This study highlights the importance of having a comprehensive database, such as www.organicrules.org, that facilitates not only a comparison of standards, but also places the groundwork for standardization. At present, no such database exists for the standards adopted by developing countries.

In our review of the developmental experience of organic agriculture among smallholders, particularly for export market, we have observed that organic farmers often also enter into fair-trade arrangements as well. Since the fair-trade arrangements have the primary objective of promoting social justice and accountability, it satisfactorily supplements organic certification, which deals mainly with the technical aspects of production. As fair-trade certification is less understood by most people, it is discussed in the following section.

Download this Discussion Paper [ PDF 147.3KB| 23 pages ].

Comment(s)

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1. Lauren
   (posted 23 November 2008 / 08:28:08 AM)
   
   The Australian Government needs to listen to this article and put into place an actual timeframe for when they are going to meet all the MDGs.