External trade in organic products

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Purpose and history
The purpose of Turnover of organic products in foreign is to give information on magnitude and composition of the turnover of organic foods in foreign trade. The survey was conducted the very first time for the year 2003.

Description of Contents
Turnover of organic products in foreign trade gives detailed information on the composition and turnover of organic products in foreign trade.

Statistical Concepts
Population:
Establishments certified to trade in organic products and at the same time have had foreign trade in potential organic products.

There are 3 registers which form the basis for the survey Turnover of organic products in foreign trade:

The Danish Plant Directorates register of authorised farms and establishments
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administrations register of authorised establishments
Statistics placecountry-regionDenmarks register of foreign trade

A. The Plant Danish Directorate
The soil products of a farm cannot be approved as organic and thereby be designated with the Danish eco-label (the red Ø symbol) until some conditions are fulfilled. The Danish Plant Directorate is responsible for this approval and subsequent annual inspections of organic farms, see the paper Vejledning om økologisk jordbrugsproduktion. Plantedirektoratet august 2000.

A farm is defined as a unit whose accounts, areas, places of production and storage are clearly separated from any other unit. It is possible to run both an organic and non-organic operating unit provided that the areas, places of production and storage of the organic unit are clearly separated from the non-organic operating unit and if the operating units have independent SE numbers. If a farm is to continue as an authorised organic farm, it has to submit every year a so-called Organic report to the Directorate for Food, Fishing and Agri Business.

In addition to authorising and conducting regular annual inspections of the organic producers, the Danish Plant Directorate is also responsible for authorisation and random checks of the establishments processing, keeping or selling organic products, which can be used in the production of the organic farms.

An establishment authorised for organic production is obliged to submit annual information about the expected production of the establishment concerning the different product areas. The information submitted must contain details about the expected activities of the establishment, and for each individual product area the establishment must state whether it processes, keeps, imports, sells and/or exports organic products.

Furthermore, the establishments are also obliged to submit annual information about existing and new production plants, stocks, production and product areas. In addition to this, no data collection is conducted by the Danish Plant Directorate within this area.

B. The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration
The rules in the organic regulation concerning organic food, i.e. products intended for human consumption are administered by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, see the paper Vejledning om økologiske fødevarer, December 1999 prepared by the Directorate for Food, Fishing and Agri Business.

As mentioned, the basis for applying the rules is food, and the threshold has been drawn in such a way that animals delivered for slaughtering are considered to be food from the time the animals are in the process of being loaded for transportation to the slaughterhouses.

Establishments engaged in preparing, including packaging and labelling of organic food, are thus subject to the inspections carried out of organic farming.

Preparing of food is taken to mean the following activities:

Slaughtering
Processing
Preserving
Packaging
Sorting of non-packaged goods
Labelling, including changes in the labelling, which refer to the organic production method.

Packaging is taken to mean the first packaging as well as the re-packaging, i.e.:

The first packaging of the product itself, irrespective of whether this concerns retail packaging or bulk packaging
Breaking up packages so that the food productss no longer fulfil the organic requirements as regards sealing and labelling in connection with transportation, a subsequent packaging and/or eco-labelling must always be effected, when the food products are bought/sold wholesale as organic food.

However, in accordance with the rules, no process of packaging is conducted in the following instances:

Breaking up transport packaging, and any split-up of the consignment, if the consignment comprises pre-packaged food or units, which comply individually with the organic requirements as regards sealing and labelling in connection with transportation
Additional packaging of already pre-packaged food
Packing conducted in the presence of the customer.

Until an establishment can initiate its reported activities, a so-called organic report has to be issued by one of the 11 regional veterinary and food control centres. The report outlines the organic products/product categories which the establishment is entitled to produce, and in which way the production is to be carried out. The organic report comprises a description of the establishments reported activities as well as the procedures, whose object is to ensure that the organic rules are being observed.

The establishments subjected to inspection are registered on the basis of their CVR number by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. Information on industry (NACE) is extracted from the CVR register. In some cases, the industry code number is not sufficiently detailed, and further specifications are added. In other cases, it is considered expedient to merge the industry code numbers.

It is the responsibility of each producer to see to it that the production is conducted in accordance with the guidelines described in the organic report, as well as establishing own adequate procedures of checks, ensuring that the rules are being observed. Each individual regional veterinary and food control centre make an assessment of whether the procedures are adequate, before an organic report is issued. When the regional veterinary and food control centres visit the establishments, checks of the extent to which these procedures are being observed, are carried out.

In connection with the inspections, balances derived on the basis of samples are, e.g. being checked:

Within each individual establishment
Between establishments
Between establishment and farmer

It is not all retail shops selling organic food that are subjected to the organic checks carried out by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. These retailers are shops selling pre-packed organic food, e.g. supermarkets as well as shops selling organic food by the piece, e.g. greengrocers shops. In connection with the general inspections conducted by the regional veterinary and food control centres, random checks of, e.g. the labelling and documentation of whether the food products are organic are also conducted.

The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration maintain an updated register of the establishments subjected to organic checks.

Neither locally in the 11 regional veterinary and food control centres nor centrally in the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration is any registration of quantities or values of the produced/processed products conducted. This information is exclusively available from each individual establishment.


C. Foreign trade

An establishment must be approved before it is entitled to trade in organic food products. This also applies to trading across the Danish border, i.e. imports and exports.

In the case of imports within the area of responsibility of the Danish Plant Directorate, the following distinction is made:

Imports from EU countries and EEA countries: placecountry-regionNorway, placecountry-regionnIceland and placecountry-regionSwitzerland
Imports from third countries (non-EU countries).

Re. 1
When products are imported from these countries, there must be documentation of whether the seller is subjected to organic checks conducted by an approved control authority in the sellers home country, and an original invoice must be provided by the seller, which shows the organic status of the consignment. Imports are not to be reported to the Danish Plant Directorate.

Re. 2
In the case of imports from third countries, a consignment of organic products must be reported to the Danish Plant Directorate before the products are imported to placecountry-regionDenmark.

In connection with imports from third countries, the Danish Plant Directorate has copies of the export certificates as from November 2002, containing information on the product and quantity.

Establishments authorised for organic production or sale of organic products, can freely export their products. At the request of the establishment, the Danish Plant Directorate can issue a declaration that a consignment has been produced by an authorised establishment/farm.

Within the area of responsibility of the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, there are parallel rules for imports and exports. However, imports of organic food products from placecountry-regionNorway, placecountry-regionIceland and placecountry-regionSwitzerland must also be reported to the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration.

The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration do not collect information in terms of quantity as regards imports from third countries, but exclusively register the permissions granted for imports of food products directly to placecountry-regionDenmark. Furthermore, the control certificates attached to the imported consignments from third countries are executed by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration.

Statistics on placecountry-regionDenmarks external trade is compiled monthly by Statistics Denmark. There are two systems: trade with EU countries and trade with third countries.

Trade between placecountry-regionDenmark and the other EU countries is prepared on the basis of data reported by Danish establishments whose total annual imports of goods exceed DKK 1.5 mio. and/or exports of goods exceeding DKK 2.5 mio. Monthly data are reported by approximately 10,000 establishments.

The following statistical data are collected for each commodity flow (imports or exports):


Commodity code in accordance with the Combined Nomenclature (CN)
Partner country (imports = country of dispatch/country of origin, exports = country of destination)
Type of transaction
Invoiced value in DKK
Net weight in kg and/or supplementary unit, e.g. litre, piece.

Statistics on trade between placecountry-regionDenmark and non-EU countries are compiled on the basis of data reported to the Danish Central Customs and Tax Administration in connection with imports and exports of goods to/from placecountry-regionDenmark from/to third countries. The coverage of the statistics is complete, as all transactions must be reported. In the case of smaller transactions under the statistical threshold (DKK 7.5000 and 1.000 kg) a simplified reporting can be applied.


For each commodity transaction (imports or exports), the following information is collected, which is used in compiling the external trade statistics:

Commodity code in accordance with the Combined Nomenclature (CN) or TARIC (imports only)
Partner country (imports = country of dispatch/country of origin exports = country of destination)
Procedural code
Statistical value in DKK (cif in the case of imports and fob in the case of exports)
Net weight in kg and/or suppplementary unit, e.g. litre, piece
Method of transport at the border


Furthermore, a range of information is collected which is primarily used for fiscal purposes.

The statistical system for foreign trade is thus rather comprehensive and complicated, and the data collection conducted by each EU country is subjected to Council Regulations. Although the commodity nomenclature applied is highly detailed, there is no distribution of organic and non-organic products.


1.2.2 Respondent register
Before contacting the respondents, Statistics Denmark has received information about authorised farms and establishments from the Danish Plant Directorate and the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration.

By the end of 2004, there were almost 3,400 authorised farms/establishments (legal units) at the Danish Plant Directorate and almost 500 establishments (legal units) at the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. Having matched information with Statistics Denmarks register of external trade statistics, it turned out that 254 of these establishments (legal units) were engaged in external trade with potential organic products.

These 254 establishments (legal units) make up the respondent register for the population.

1.2.3 Mailing and processing of the questionnaires
Subsequently, questionnaires are mailed to 254 establishments. The information, which was reported by the establishments to the external trade statistics, is shown in the questionnaire, and at the same time the establishments are asked to report the share of their turnover, which can be contributed to organic goods. 131 of the above-mentioned establishments have been engaged in external trade in organic goods.

As previously mentioned, EUs Combined Nomenclature, CN-8 has been applied for reporting information. To facilitate comparisons with international statistics, the information is published in the UNs Standard International Trade Classification, SITC.

In addition to the questionnaires, the establishments also received a CD-ROM, containing the questionnaires in the form of excel spreadsheets and a summary of commodity and country codes, as well as associated text sections.

When the questionnaires are returned by the establishments to Statistics Denmark, they are subjected to a subsequent quality check, and in a number of cases, contact is made to the respondents.

Releases

Last updated:	10 December 2009
Scheduled releases:	23 November 2010 for the period 2009

Contact

Kristian Hjulsager
Telephone:	+ 45 39 17 30 31
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