ABSTRACT
Various voluntary certification programmes and standards for organic agriculture have been developed in the past 20 years. In addition to numerous private organic standards worldwide, more than 60 governments have already codified organic standards into technical regulations (IFOAM, 2008). The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has established a set of national standards for any foodhandling organization that wants to sell organically produced foods (USDA, 2008). In the European Union, all organic products must be certified by an approved organization such as the Soil Association, based in the UK, Sweden’s KRAV or Australian Certified Organic. The aim of these national standards is to assure consumers that ‘the organic foods they purchase are produced, processed and certified to be consistent with national organic standards’ (USDA, 2008).
