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Comment by jenadine | Hacker News Reader

> strict Spanish regulation for organic produce.

Organic labels are a different thing than official regulation though. IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things.

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There is an official eu organic label. It’s not compulsory of course, but it’s the baseline for organic food production in and for Europe. Other (private) labels have stricter rules and are usually certified in addition to the EU label.

No, this is definitely an official gvmt body that can fine you if you try to sell fruit as organic that doesn't follow the regulations. It IS definitely compulsory if you mark your produce as organic.

"IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things."

What do you mean?

I only know of "Demeter", that also has some very esoteric requirements (homeopathy, cosmic energy flow rituals) - but otherwise organic label optimize for:

- no or little pesticides and herbicides

- more space and better condition for the animals

My only other grievance is that they also all ban GMO

They optimise for natural. So you can still have pesticides and herbicides. If you find your poison in some plant, it is fine. If you synthetize the same molecule in a factory, then it's not allowed.

As for the animal welfare, true, but there are also labels specifically for that that.

Biodynamic at least requires farms to produce their own fertilizers. For that reason alone I try to buy it. Fertilizer dependency will be the end of us

I ignore all the magic stuff (in fact, if you have some spiritual devotion to the food you're growing I think that's just fine)

> no or little pesticides and herbicides

From Wikipedia:

> Pesticides are allowed as long as they are not synthetic.[28]