The European Commission is planning to create rules to cover limits or “thresholds” for pesticide residues in organic food. It is expected that this could be included in a new regulation on organics early in 2017.
The move is to standardize a permitted level of pesticide or fertilizer residues that might be found in organic products. Currently, only three countries – Belgium, Italy and Hungary – have laws that decertify those organic products where tests show such residues. EU law currently states that only those chemicals that have been authorized for use in organic production can be used by farmers.
But the law does not address how to deal with products when tests show that they contain unauthorized chemical residues. As such, other EU countries aside from the three which have national laws, tolerate this so-called contamination.
Reports show that some products decertified in one of the three countries because of chemical presence are shipped to another country where they can effectively be marketed as organic. Organic supporters claim this undermines the integrity of the system and opens the door to fraud on consumers.
By law, foods may be labeled “organic” only if at least 95% of their agricultural ingredients meet the necessary standards.