NIPPON


 

Japan and the European Union will expand their mutual recognition arrangement for organic food so that a wider range of products can be labeled as organic food for trade between the economies.

The new list will include alcoholic beverages such as sake, livestock products and processed livestock products, while the current coverage is limited mainly to nonlivestock agricultural products.

The EU has a huge organic food market. The expanded arrangement will eliminate the need to gain additional approvals for newly added items at the time of import and export, facilitating trade in such products.

The new system will be applied to exports from Japan from Sunday and imports from the EU from Friday.

Under the Organic Japanese Agricultural Standards system, authorities judge whether agricultural and livestock products are produced in a sustainable way with reduced burdens on the environment and without reliance on pesticide or chemical fertilizer.