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Jeanette Wang

It can be confusing trying to define 'organic', especially when standards vary worldwide.
In some jurisdictions, such as the United States, the EU and Japan, the government has drawn up and oversees comprehensive legislation on organic foods. In other countries, laws may not exist, the government may or may not issue guidelines and certification is handled by non-profit organisations and/or private companies. 
According to the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (Ifoam), there are currently hundreds of private organic standards worldwide; in addition, organic standards have been codified in the technical regulations of more than 60 governments.  
While there are international certification bodies, including members of Ifoam, the Organic Crop Improvement Association and Ecocert, there is no international harmonisation of certification yet. 
In Asia, the Asia Regional Organic Standard is being developed - presently in its second draft. The scope of this standard is, for now, crops, wild production processing and labelling. 
In Hong Kong, according to the Centre for Food Safety, organic standards include: 
- For planting: avoiding the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers, but emphasising crop rotation, animal and plant manures, hand-weeding and biological pest control.
- For raising animals: avoiding the use of antibiotics, growth hormones and other animal feed additives.
- No application of genetic modification and ionising radiation. 
The city, however, does not have any specific regulation for organic products. But there is a non-profit organic certification organisation, the Hong Kong Organic Resource Centre (HKORC), which was set up with a grant from the Agricultural Development Fund of the Vegetable Marketing Organisation in December 2002. False organic labelling is dealt with by the Customs and Excise Department.  
According to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, as at last month, there were 400 organic farms in Hong Kong, with 86 crops production farms and four additional processing farms certified organic by the HKORC.



What exactly is organic?