New EU Organic Logo

Following an on-line vote by 130,000 people, the new compulsory EU organic logo has been chosen.

From almost 3500 entrants, three were shortlisted and examined to ensure that there were no copyright infringements.

The winning design comprised twelve stars in the shape of a leaf and, according to the EU Commission, �a very straightforward sign containing two clear messages: Nature and Europe�. It was drawn up by German student Dusan Milenkovic, who receives �6000 in prize money.

The identities and nationalities of the three final contenders have not previously been published, to prevent skewing the voting.

The winning design, �Euro-leaf�, gained 63% of the overall vote for his logo.

From 1st July 2010, the organic logo of the EU will be obligatory on all pre-packaged organic products that have been produced in any of the EU Member States and meet the necessary standards.

It will be optional for products imported into the EU. Other private, regional or national logos will be allowed to appear alongside the EU label.

This includes the logos of the Irish Certification bodies and the UK's quite familiar Soil Association logo.

Importantly for food businesses, there will be an 18 month period of grace to use up existing stock of labels.

However new products will face a challenging time getting the logo integrated into their product packaging.

"I'm delighted that we now have a fresh EU organic food logo," said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, who first proposed the competition to select the logo.

"This exercise has raised the profile of organic food and we now have a logo which everyone will be able to identify with. It's a nice elegant design and I look forward to buying products carrying this logo from July this year."

Ireland's largest certification body expressed a mixed opinion on it: �IOFGA are glad to see that the arduous process of designing a new EU Logo for organic products has finally come to an end.

The fact that the process has taken so long may mean that the logo has lost some momentum particularly with some of our members who have repackaged their products in the interim. The final three logos initially did not impress but on closer examination the winning design does have some appeal.�

They go on �It is a clean design with a strong emphasis on Europe which of course is the objective of the logo. It remains to be seen how the logo is used on products and an extensive advertising campaign is important to highlight the new logo to organic consumers.�

UK certification bodies, however, have come out fairly unimpressed by the logo.

Molly Conisbee, director of communications and campaigns at the Soil Association said:

"The Soil Association doesn't believe the EU logo will address the desire of consumers to know more about the provenance of their food...�.

She goes on to claim that �we don't think people who buy organic food are so much concerned about EU origins� compared to other values.

The UK's Organic Farmers and Growers called all the logos �a bit dull and uninformative�.

And yet, the latter also considered another of the three logos to be �hieroglyphic�, and possibly a cause of confusion with its small size and intricate detail.

To be fair to the EU Commission, an inevitable confusion was caused by the use of the word �Bio� in the rest of the EU, and �Organic� in Britain and Ireland, to describe the same certification system.

UK certification bodies seem to be both expressing and pandering to a very British cultural separateness from the EU, whilst also protecting their own economic patch.

The Soil Association, for example, feel that their logo is already very familiar, trusted by consumers, and representative of their �higher� standards.

However, as this new logo will inevitably appear on far more products than any one body certifies, this familiarity may soon be backgrounded by the Euro-Leaf.

EU parliment votes on pesticides

The long awaited vote on the use and classification of pesticides in the EU was held on the 13th January.

The vote was opposed by Spain, Hungary, the UK and Ireland. The deal struck will,
according to the EU news portal EurActiv, will : �lead to a ban of a number of hazardous substances that pose a potential threat to human health and the environment�. It will also oblige �member states to embrace more sustainable use of pesticides�.

The EU Commission welcomed the Parliament�s decision, stating that �the new legislation will increase the protection of human health and the environment, will lead to a better protection of agricultural production and will extend and deepen the single market of plant protection products�

The package has yet to be formally adopted by the Council, which remains divided over the issue, despite a compromise reached in December.
That compromise deal divided up Europe into three mutual recognition zones - north, centre and south. Member states will still be allowed to ban specific products.
Indeed, that December deal would still allow for the use of pesticides due to be banned for up to five years, if they are proven to be what is considered essential for crop survival.
Otherwise, operators have three years to replace products containing certain hazardous substances, provided safer alternatives can be shown to exist.

Member states will have to adopt national action plans on pesticide use, and to work towards usage reduction and the establishment of appropriate measures such as protection of nature and establishment of buffer zones. Limitations will also be placed on the public use of pesticides.
Most of the debate has centred on price of food production and on the change from a risk to a hazard-based system.

When queried about the issue, our own Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food claimed that �the proposed hazard-based system will limit the number and type of plant protection products on the market without contributing to any significant reduction in overall operator, bystander, consumer or environmental exposures�.

They also pointed out that �some substances, which may fail to meet the criteria, are crucial to crop protection in Ireland.�

Withdrawal of products �is likely to cause significant agronomic and economic damage, will lead to a significant adverse impact on crop protection, will limit the range of chemistry available to avoid the build-up of resistance and will result in dramatically reduced crop yields� they suggested.

Most of the support for the change in legislation has come from environmental and health NGOs, and the organic farming and food sectors.

After the vote last week, Ireland�s largest certification body, the Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association (IOFGA) �welcomed the 13th January vote in the EU Parliament to tighten the rules governing pesticide use and to ban the use of 22 chemicals deemed to be harmful to human health.�

They also stated that �the banned substances have been associated with causing cancer or having the potential to interfere with the human reproductive or hormonal
systems.

Kate Carmody Chairperson of IOFGA stated, �IOFGA welcomes the fact that the EU Parliament has put the protection of human health first, in banning these potentially dangerous pesticides many of which are endocrine disruptors. They did this despite extensive lobbying from the agrichemical industry.�

She also pointed out that �the fact that there is a thriving and growing organic farming sector in Ireland and across the EU which does not rely on pesticides proves that they are not necessary for the production of quality food.�

A qualified biochemist with a family history in the profession dating back to the 1830s, Carmody also stated that �we should remember that pesticides are essentially poisons which are routinely sprayed on crops in conventional agriculture. Do we really want to spray these on our food?�

pic from: www.citizenscampaign.org

organic food is good for you: EU commission

I was at a meeting recently where values were being discussed. This part of the meeting was about the values a particular close knit community should hold. Honest was mentioned as one.

At first, no one seemed to bat an eyelid. Surely honesty is a worthwhile value for any community trying to work together? Then someone who turned out to have a background in law piped up. �Honesty implies dishonesty� he pontificated.

People were somewhat taken aback. How on earth can honesty imply dishonesty> He suggested that honesty should just be presumed, it should be integral to how the group interacts. If the group has to state it, then the group is implying that it is striving towards it, or trying to maintain it. Communication within the group should always be honest, otherwise the group could even be lying about claiming to be honest.

So honestly implies dishonesty, much like those pubs in the far flung corners of the world with the signs up saying �no guns, no knives, no hard drugs� are probably best avoided. Why put up those signs if there is no issue?

It is for a similar reason that the phrase �Organic farming: good for nature, good for you� has gotten the EU Commission into such hot water. As part of a 21 point Action Plan, the Commission has just launched a campaign to promote organic farming and food amongst the EU�s consumers with that very slogan.

The Commission has a very informative website with an unfortunately long url: here

That slogan �Organic farming: good for nature, good for you� is in fact the first thing to greet the visitor. The Commission is in a bit of pickle, because they have to promote all farming, and making any specifically positive statements about organic farming could be taken as an implication that other farming does not carry these positive attributes.

"We are not favouring organic as an alternative to conventional," according to Michael Mann, agriculture spokesman for the European Commission.

"Merely we are providing the marketing tools to aid progress in the organic industry while helping consumers make their own choices on which products to buy."

The Commission has developed a list of slogans and key messages, which can be used by professionals. These include "Organic farming. The natural choice"; "Organic farming. In nature we trust"; "Organic farming. In goodness we trust"; and "Organic products meet consumer demand for authentic, high quality and tasty food".

Natural, trust, tasty, high quality, authentic, goodness, and even a play on the phrase �in god we trust�. That could certainly be taken as a lot of implications.

The Commission is also introducing a new logo from January 1^st, which will become mandatory, though national logos will still be allowable. This is also the date for the new EU organic regulations take over from the one currently in operation, Council Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 as amended.

Until recently, the Commission was all set to introduce a logo with the word �bio� in the centre of the image, as that word is more commonly used in the EU than organic is, for the certified products in accordance with the regulation 2092/91.

However, this logo was deemed to be too similar to the Aldi logo, and dropped. Needless to say, it would have confused UK and Irish consumers no end. What�s a �bio�? A cheeky rural lad? A shortened version of biotech? Some peculiar implications there, to be sure.

In Ireland, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we had our own logo wars. The organic movement had a few rip-roaring and in the end contentious debates over logos and their possible meanings. Logos came and went, as did personnel from IOFGA to form the Organic Trust.

Now, if you are so inclined, you can enter a competition to design the new EU organic logo. Just be careful of what your design might imply.