The Organic Federation of Canada is accepting submissions on updating the Canadian Organic Standards.
Anybody is welcome to make suggestions.
Submissions will be grouped by themes, and working groups will be formed by July 30 to hash out what, if any, changes need to be made to the national standard.
The new standard is expected to be published in December 2025, following a series of working group meetings, technical committee votes and a period of public comment.
“It’s exciting that we’re starting that process,” said Tia Loftsgard, executive director of the Canada Organic Trade Association.
“It’s always good to keep everything up to date.”
It is also a requirement to conduct a review every five years and a stipulation of international trade agreements with 33 nations.
She doesn’t know what issues will be raised this time around, but it is a safe bet there will be questions surrounding the evolving field of genetic engineering.
One of the new challenges in that realm is that seed developers will not have to identify gene-edited seeds that do not include novel traits.
“There’s always new technology coming to the market that could be an issue that we’ll have to look at,” said Loftsgard.
“Do we need to improve testing?”
Fairness is another likely topic of conversation. Last time around, there wasn’t the time or money to have a fulsome exploration of that issue.
“We have standards in regard to how animals are treated but we don’t have standards in regard to how workers are treated,” she said.
“We think it’s time to bring that back.”
Agriculture Canada is funding the standards update. Loftsgard said the organic sector doesn’t have the $700,000 or so the review is expected to cost, and the standard is owned by Ottawa.
The standard and the regulation of that standard is what sets the organic sector apart from regenerative agriculture and other designations like “natural,” “green” and “sustainable.”
It is the basis of equivalency agreements with key trading partners like the European Union, the United States and Japan.
Loftsgard said the EU recently finished a complete overhaul of its standards, so the timing couldn’t be better for Canada’s review.
“We always look to Europe as the best benchmark for organic in the world,” she said.
