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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Facilitating Trade in Organic Food Products: The Case of India and ASEAN
Author(s)
Arpita Mukherjee and Avantika Kapoor
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DOI:10.17265/2161-6264/2018.04.008
Affiliation(s)
Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi 110003, India
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses how India and Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) countries can increase their trade in organic food products.
With rise in demand for organic food products globally, India and select ASEAN
member countries have become key producers and exporters of organic food
products. Trade in organic food products is governed by regulations, standards,
certification and accreditation procedures, which enables differentiation of
organic products from conventional products. Organic standards ensure premium
price for the farmers and producers, while consumers are assured of
authenticity of the product. Standards can act as a barrier to trade as
regulations governing organic food products can vary across countries. Some
countries are also in process of developing regulations. This paper discusses
the role of different multilateral agencies in designing standards and how
countries can address issues of difference in standards by signing unilateral
and bilateral equivalence arrangements, trade agreements and harmonizing their
standards within regional groups. It also discusses how India and ASEAN
countries can align their domestic regulations in line with the global best
practices so that they can sign equivalence arrangements to enhance their exports.
The paper concludes that measures such as coming up with a comprehensive
definition of “organic”, having a uniform
standard for organic products encompassing domestic market and trade, having a
single nodal agency for both domestic market and exports, developing organic
clusters and reducing the cost of third-party certification will help enhance
trade in India and ASEAN, and enable these countries to access third country
markets.
KEYWORDS
ASEAN, equivalence arrangement, India, organic food product, trade, agriculture.
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