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Ukraine: Parliament approves law on organic farming

The Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) has—as one of the last in Eastern Europe—approved a new law on organic farming. This is a major mile-stone for the sector and sets a legal, economic and social basis for organic farming and requirements on the production, processing, certification, marketing, transportation, storage and sale of organic products.

 

A total of 286 out of 383 lawmakers registered in the session hall last Thursday supported the law, which sets state policy in the organic farming sphere. Accordingly, the state develops competitive and effective agriculture with the help of organic farming, increases exports of organic products, develops the organic products market in the country and encourages the production of high-quality organic products as well as the environmental protection and resto-ration and rational use of natural resources.

According to the law which will take effect on January 1, 2012, organic farming may not in-clude the use of chemicals or genetically modified organisms. The law states that the central executive power body for agricultural policy supervises organic farming. The law also sets common requirements on the production, processing, storage and sale of organic products. In addition, the law says that organic farms are to be certified. The law sets punishments for the violation of the law. Organic farm operators can be excluded from the register of operators and can be deprived of their certificate, or the certificate can be suspended.

Within the Swiss-Ukrainian project "Organic Certification and Market Development in Ukraine" financed by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) successfully and actively participated in working out the draft organic law and provided technical expertise.

In 2008, FiBL in cooperation with the Ministry of Agricultural Policy of Ukraine and the National Association of Agricultural Advisory Services of Ukraine (Dorada) organised the Beate Huber, FiBL Switzerland

Link

portal.rada.gov.ua: The Law on Organic Production will make Ukraine more Competitive in the Global Food Market (news o April 21, 2011)

Further reading

Prokopchuk, Natalie and Eisenring, Tobias (2011) Ukraine: Country Report. In: Willer, Helga and Kilcher, Lukas (Eds.) The World of Organic Agriculture - Statistics and Emerging Trends 2011. FiBL, IFOAM, Ch-Frick and D-Bonn, pp. 173-176.

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