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Organic trade agreement with Japan

The U.S. and Japan have reached an agreement whereby they may openly trade organic products. The equivalency agreement is the third between the U.S. and other countries.  Miles McEvoy says starting January 1st, 2014, more U.S. organic products may enter into Japan, “So this is an entry way to continue to get more organic products into the Asian market.”

The first two organic equivalency agreements were with Canada and the European Union, “A lot of countries around the world have organic standards and most of those organic standards are very, very similar,” McEvoy says, “But, the part that’s really important in terms of organic trade is to ensure that they have an accreditation, inspection, certification and verification system that provides integrity to those organic products.”

The USDA says Canada is the largest market for U.S. organic products and Japan is the largest in Asia.

~USDA 

  • Organic equivalency arrangements amount to nothing more than administrative arrangements. The EU, Japan and the United States all have some sort of testing requirements written into their organic standards, but these requirements are being completely ignored in all off these agreements.
    Canada, meanwhile, has no testing requirement written into its organic standards. Not so much as a word mentioning how laboratory analysis might be used to ensure organic food is safe or genuine. Why exactly does Miles McEvoy think it’s a good thing to sign an equivalency agreement with countries that ignore their own rules on organic field testing, and with a country – Canada – that doesn’t even pay lip service to testing?

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