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Which crop protection products are allowed in organic agriculture in the European Union (for both domestic production and import)?


The European Union Commission defined a list of allowed plant protection products for organic agriculture on its Commission Regulation (EC) No 889/2008, Annex II. This list focuses on allowed chemicals rather than products. Crop protection products are often formulated with more than one active ingredient. Therefore, if a product seeks the EU’s organic production approval, all its active ingredients must be included in this list. However, sometimes this process could be even more complex since some chemicals are only allowed for organic production under certain requirements and conditions of use.

A good example of the complexity of this process is the pelargonic acid which, even though it is included in the aforementioned EU list, it can be only used in organic farming in the EU if it is not used as an herbicide. Consequently, those products containing pelargonic acid and with approved uses as insecticides or fungicides could be allowed for organic agriculture in the European Union. Again, this situation is not sufficient by itself since the product must be also allowed for professional use for the targeted crop-pest pair as well.

Homologa® compiles all the necessary information available to help users filter those products allowed for organic uses not only in the European Union, but also in other international markets. On the one hand, Homologa® offers an extensive list of products and their registered use (crops-pests) for conventional or organic production at the national level. On the other hand, the Commission Regulation (EC) No 889/2008 information is implemented in the module “active-level-registration” which allows for cross comparison between active ingredients of the registered products and the requirements of the organic farming regulation. This functionality is especially useful in countries such as Spain where the Ministry of Agriculture does not publish a list of products allowed for organic farming. Nevertheless, some other countries do publish their national lists of allowed products.

A detailed list of this country list is available in the “Certification Standards (entry: Organic Production)” field available in the Homologa®’s interactive map.

Please visit Homologa® or contact us for further information.