Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 on organic production and labelling of organic products

Organic agriculture occupied 8.6 million hectares in the EU in 2009, which represents 4.7% of EU-27 utilised agricultural area. In the period 2006-2009, its average annual rate of growth was 7.7% in the EU-15 and 13% in the EU-12 (EU-15 represented 81% of all EU organic area in 2009). There were about 197,000 holdings involved in organic agriculture in 2008, i.e. 1.4% of all EU-27 holdings. It is estimated that the organic sector represented 2% of total food expenses in the EU-15 in 2007.

Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 and its implementing Regulations, Commission Regulations (EC) No 889/2008 and (EC) No 1235/2008 constitute the legal framework on organic food and farming at EU level.

When conceiving Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 the Council pointed at the dynamic evolution of the organic sector and asked for a future review of a number of issues for which it was considered that experience gained from the application of the new rules should be taken into account. The Regulation specified in its Article 41 which particular issues must be reviewed:

1. the scope of the Regulation itself, in particular as regards organic food prepared by mass caterers;

2. the prohibition on the use of GMOs, including the availability of products not produced by GMOs, the vendor declaration, the feasibility of specific tolerance thresholds and their impact on the organic sector;

3. the functioning of the internal market and controls system, assessing in particular that the established practices do not lead to unfair competition or barriers to the production and marketing of organic products.

With this report the Commission takes stock of the experience gained by the application of the Regulation from 1 January 2009, when it started to apply. The report will focus on the three main subjects set out above. In addition, it will highlight some other important issues under discussion with the Member States and stakeholders.

In order to get a better view on the experience gained so far with the Regulation, the Commission sent a questionnaire to all the Member States and to stakeholders, by distributing it to all the Members of the Advisory Group for Organic Farming. Twenty-six Member States replied to the questionnaire in March 2011, as well as eleven stakeholders. Those replies provided an essential input to this report.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)212: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:212:FIN

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