Monitoring system for fruit and vegetables in the organic food trade
On July 1, 2003, since 2006 has Berlin -based German Association for Natural Food Goods Production and Trade Association with the structure of the monitoring system for fruit and vegetables in the organic trade started. Since then, organic fruit and vegetables have been systematically examined for pesticide contamination . The aim of the monitoring is to uncover and document possible cultivation errors and gaps in quality assurance in order to contribute to the quality of the food traded as organically produced . The monitoring system brought the following improvements to the health food market:
- Coordinated residue analyzes in specialist laboratories have become a permanent part of quality assurance
- Contaminations with residues or mixtures with conventional crops have been and are being discovered, and defects can be eliminated
- Cases of fraud are exposed through comprehensive and risk-oriented sampling.
The BNN monitoring feels as organic declared conventional fruits and vegetables and keeps it away from the organic market. Every residue found also triggers a thorough investigation into the cause. In addition, BNN monitoring collects data on pesticide contamination of organically produced fruit and vegetables and processes them systematically.
The project “Establishing a monitoring system for fruit and vegetables in the organic food trade” ran within the framework of the federal organic farming program and was financially supported by the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture from July 1, 2003 to December 31, 2004 . Since January 1, 2005, the additional quality assurance system under the management of BNN Manufacturing and Trading has been continued on a private law basis and is open to all businesses in the organic food trade.
As part of the monitoring , samples are taken every four weeks in the organic food wholesalers, which are coordinated nationwide in such a way that a large part of the fruit and vegetable varieties that are currently on the market are recorded.