New System for Regulating Organic Products in India
22. January 2020The demand for organic products is increasing worldwide, including in India. A large number of small farmers in India manage about 3.6 million hectares of organic farm land, but also an increasing number of professional farming corporations. According to the World of Organic Agriculture Report 2018, India has the biggest number of organic producers in the world. Several Indian federal states are promoting organic farming.
Due to the interest in organic products, FSSAI published new regulations in the Gazette of India regarding food safety and standards for organic foods. Now, the FSSAI has also announced national standards for organic products.
These standards stipulate that organic food has to comply with the regulations of one of the existing certification systems. These certification systems include the National Program for Organic Production under Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), the National Program for Organic Production (NPOP) and the Participatory Guarantee System for India (PGS) under Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
The Indian authority, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is an autonomous institution with headquarter in New-Delhi. They are government agency fall under the ministry of Health & Welfare of India. They were established under the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006, which is a statute related to food safety and regulation in India. The FSSAI is responsible for the regulation of organic food for the domestic market and imports.
Organic food products need to comply, additionally to NPOP and PGS-India, also to the requirements of labelling of FSSAI.
For any question regarding import of organic products to India, please contact us via email.
Here you can find more information about the AIS certification, BIS certification, WPC certification and TEC certification.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for further details and consultation. You can contact us via e-mail, or call us (UK: +44 2071931135, Rest of Europe: +49 69 2713769150, US: +1 773 654-2673).
You can also download our brochures about the compulsory certifications here.
