Amendment to EU Organic Regulation
An amendment to the EU Organic Regulation will be published on Thursday 9th January. It covers permitted substances and practices for use in organic farming, growing and food manufacture. We apologise for the short notice, as we were only informed of the update at the end of 2019, and have had to assess the changes and produce this communication in a very small timeframe.
Broadly, the changes relate to:
- Fertilisers
- Pesticides
- Livestock – Feed additives
- Food additives and processing aids
Due to the nature of some of the changes, we're awaiting clarification from the European Commission before deciding whether to incorporate all of them into our Soil Association Standards. We've incorporated all of the changes into our EU Equivalent Organic Standards for those certifying to EU standards only.
In addition to updates that have been made to reflect the amended EU Organic Regulation, a small number of wording changes have been made to some standards and guidance to provide further clarification for licensees. Download a summary of all of the changes in the Soil Association Standards and the EU Equivalent Standards for more information. Please note: these summaries do not include small changes to formatting, spelling and grammar.
The updated versions of Soil Association Standards and the EU Equivalent Organic Standards are version number 18.2 and 1.2, respectively, and have replaced previous versions on the website.