Q: What is organic?
Q: What does "Certified Organic" mean?
Q: Who regulates the certified organic claims?
Q: Are all organic products completely frepesticideresidues?
Q: Is organic food better for you?
Q:Why does organic food sometimes cost more?
What is organic?
Organic refers to the way agricultural products—food and fiber—are grown and processed. Organic food production is based on a system of farming that maintains and replenishes soil fertility without the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and fertilizers. Organic foods are minimally processed without artificial ingredients, preservatives, or irradiation to maintain the integrity of the food.
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What does "Certified Organic" mean?
"Certified Organic" means the item has been grown according to strict uniform standards that are verified by independent state or private organizations. Certification includes inspections of farm fields and processing facilities, detailed record keeping, and periodic testing of soil and water to ensure that growers and handlers are meeting the standards, which have been set. Certified Organic is the only way to guarantee that the product is organic. Producers cannot use the term ‘Organic’ legally without certification. To bypass this legal requirement for certification, various alternative approaches, using currently undefined terms like "natural" instead of "organic", are emerging.
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Who regulates the certified organic claims?
In India, APEDA regulates the certification of organic products as per National Standards for Organic Production. "The NPOP standards for production and accreditation system have been recognized by European Commission and Switzerland as equivalent to their country standards. Similarly, USDA has recognized NPOP conformity assessment procedures of accreditation as equivalent to that of US. With these recognitions, Indian organic products duly certified by the accredited certification bodies of India are accepted by the importing countries
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Are all organic products completely free of pesticide residues?
Certified organic products have been grown and handled according to strict standards without toxic and persistent chemical inputs.
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Is organic food better for you?
There is mounting evidence at this time to suggest that organically produced foods may be more nutritious. Furthermore, organic foods and fiber are spared the application of toxic and persistent insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers. In the long run, organic farming techniques provide a safer, more sustainable environment for everyone.
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Why does organic food sometimes cost more? Prices for organic foods reflect many of the same costs as conventional items in terms of growing, harvesting, transportation and storage. Organically produced foods must meet stricter regulations governing all of these steps, so the process is often more labor- and management-intensive, and farming tends to be on a smaller scale. There is also mounting evidence that if all the indirect costs of conventional food production—cleanup of polluted water, replacement of eroded soils, costs of health care for farmers and their workers—were factored into the price of food, organic foods would cost the same or, more likely, be cheaper.
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