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Canada Organic Regulations

Most of the discussion around the new organic regs has been well circulated and was included in our July issue. Most of the links to the new regs and associated documents can be found on the CFIA Canada Organic Office (COO) website at http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/orgbio/orgbioe.shtml.

In July they also posted the COO Operating Manual at: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/orgbio/man/orgbiomane.shtml

This is a fairly long detailed document that contains the policies and procedures for activities applicable to the Canada Organic Regime (COR). The manual provides overview of the procedure to be followed when CFIA and CVB enter into an Agreement, the accreditation and the certification procedures. The goal in producing this manual is to provide a structure so that services are delivered in a consistent and efficient manner. In other words this document explains how the CFIA will work with the CVBs and CBs to enforce the new regulations. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/francais/fssa/orgbio/man/orgbiomanf.shtml

On a related note the 2009 revisions to the Canadian Organic Standards were balloted in June 2008 and it appears that most revisions were accepted. These will now be finalized and approved by the Standards Council of Canada later this fall. There were some details on these changes reported in the Summer edition of the COG magazine The Canadian Organic Grower. A number of these were for clarification or to make the Canadian standards more equivalent to the US and EU standards. In this vein some new products were added to the Permitted Substances List.