Survey of the Residue Situation in Turkish Organic Products

Summary

Since December 2011, ETO and FiBL are jointly implementing the German-Turkish Bilateral Cooperation Project Organic Agriculture. The aim of this project is to ensure and improve the quality of Turkish organic food produced for the European market. The focus of the Project is on the avoidance of unwanted residues such as pesticide contamination. The production chains for dried apricots, sultanas and hazelnuts were investigated in greater depth, and measures were developed for quality improvement.
There is very little guidance from the EU Commission on how to handle residues on organic products. This has caused uncertainty about whether such residues can be tolerated at all, and if so, up to which level. In an attempt to arrive at a uniform interpretation, the European Organic Certifiers Council (EOCC) has produced a comprehensive document named the ‘EOCC residue guideline’. The Project has supported the translation of this guideline into Turkish, and a one-day seminar for CBs was conducted. The guideline is now applied by a couple of CBs in Turkey.