Organic Standards and Certifications
Organic standards define what organic farming is and how organic food can be produced. The IFOAM Basic Standard is the most comprehensive international organic standard.
In recent years several countries have put organic legislation in place. The first major legislation was the European Union Regulation for organic farming already in 1991. The USA and Japan got their organic legislations in 2002 in the form of NOP v
in the US and JAS in Japan. In those countries all organic products must be controlled and certified accordingly.
Finland as an EU-member state controls organic food according to the EU Organic Regulation (2091/92). In Finland the control and inspection of organic production is run by a governmental body: The Finnish Food Safety Authority, Evira. Additionally there is a separate control authority in the autonomous region of Åland and for alcoholic drinks. There are no private certification bodies for organic production in Finland.
The best known organic certification label in Finland is the "Luomu" -label (picture). Luomu means organic farming in Finnish. It is a government owned label and therefore can be used only by Finnish operators that are certified organic by Evira.
For NOP certification a separate certification scheme has been developed, covering currently mainly cereal and potato based products. (currently Finnamyl Ltd has NOP certification.)
An agreement between the EU and Japan enables us to market organic products into Japan – however the JAS label cannot be applied in Finland without direct certification by a JAS accredited certification body