Scientific Papers Series B Horticulture

honey, olive oil (from 2009) and EUorganic products (from 2010). Originlabelling also applies to aquacultureproducts.„Place of farming” in the context ofmarketing standards refers to the place ofharvest of crop products, birth and raisingof livestock, the place of milking for dairycows, and so on.„Origin” may refer, in the case of aprocessed product, to the place of lastsubstantial transformation, and thereforenot necessarily to the „place of farming” ofthe agricultural product.Optional reserved termsOptional reserved terms should be used whereit is necessary to define information aboutproduct qualities for consumers (e.g. „first coldpressed” extra virgin and virgin olive oil). As apossible alternative to EU legislation, theCommission will investigate further the optionof using CEN, the European Committee forStandardisation, for detailed rules of this type.In addition, the Commission will examine thefeasibility of laying down specific optionalreserved terms for „product of mountainfarming” and „traditional product”.One way of setting more appropriate marketingstandards could be to ask stakeholders todevelop the rules themselves. This is alreadydone for the development of industrialstandards under CEN (Table 3).Table 3. CEN (http://ec.eur-lex.europa.eu/.). The EuropeanCommittee forStandardisation(CEN) CEN is a private entity with 30national members, from EUMember States, and EFTAcountries. CEN activities are theresult of collective activities ofstakeholders, manufacturers, users,research organizations, governmentdepartments, and consumers.CEN develops voluntary EuropeanStandards (ENs). These become thesingle common standard in all 30countries. ENs help build aEuropean Internal Market for goodsand services and assist internationaltrade.– international standards:The Commission will continue to refer to andcontribute actively to the developmentof international standards.Geographical indicationsGeographical indications are names thatidentify products as originating in a territorywhere a given quality, reputation or othercharacteristic of the product is essentiallyattributable to its geographical origin(ec.europa.eu). The geographical indicationsschemes provide protection of intellectualproperty rights for products described byregistered geographical indications; andmarketing assistance, primarily by conveyinginformation as to compliance with thegeographical indication system. The schemesenhance the credibility of products in the eyesof consumers and enable fair competitionbetween producers.Representatives of producers of geographicalindication products have called for greaterrights and control over their use — forexample, to control production (using quotas),and to control the use of geographicalindication names on the packaging of processedproducts.In the international context, the geographicalindications system is well established in the EUand in many non-EU countries. However, insome trading partners, specific legislation doesnot exist or EU names are not widely protectedwithin the non-EU-country systems.Organic farmingSince 1991, the E.U. organic farmingregulation has protected the identity and theadded value of the „organic”, „biologica”’,„ecologica”’, „eco” and „bio” labels. Organicfarming is defined in EU legislation and atinternational level in a Codex Alimentariusguideline. This means consumers can beconfident of the quality of organic products andit facilitates trade in the single market and withnon-EU countries.In order to foster trade in organic products, theCommission will seek mutual recognition oforganic standards with non-EU countries andwill contribute to the development of the CodexAlimentarius organic guideline.Beginning with 2010, the label of the organicproducts obtained in E.U. feature the new ecoleaflogo, as shown in Figure 2.407