Did you know about OFIS?

Posted on October 26, 2010 4:12 pm | 0 comments

OFIS is the Organic Farming Information System of the European Commission. Although not known to a lot of people, judging from the visit counter of the web site (my visit today was number 18973), this website – a subdomain of the EU Portal for Organic Farming – contains very serious information provided by the Member States. The Member States and the European Commission use the information system as a key instrument for the exchange of agricultural data relating to organic products and for the provision of current information for the public.

• Import authorisations (contains summary lists of authorisations for imports from third countries granted according to Council Regulation (EEC) N° 2092/91. These are all the approvals issued by Member States for the marketing of organic products imported from third countries)
• Ingredient authorisations (contains summary lists of the authorisations to use agricultural ingredients that cannot be found from organic production in EU, according to Council Regulation (EEC) N° 2092/91. These are actually permissions issued by Member States for the temporary use of ingredients of conventional agricultural origin which cannot be organically produced in sufficient quantities in EU)
• List of bodies or public authorities in charge of inspection (a full list of all the inspection bodies operating in third countries and a list of control bodies or control authorities in charge of implementing in the Member States the control system mentioned at Council regulation n° 834/2007)

The information provided at the OFIS site is updated regularly. For anyone interested in visiting the web site, you may click the following link:

http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/ofis_public/index.cfm