Section 1:        

AFRISCO STANDARDS FOR ORGANIC PRODUCTION
Version 7, May 2009

Definitions

"Additive" means an enrichment, supplement or other substance which may be added to a foodstuff to affect its keeping quality, consistency, colour, taste, smell or other technical property;

"Audit" means a systematic and functionally independent examination to determine whether activities and related results comply with planned objectives;

"Certification" means the procedure by which Ecocert-Afrisco provides written assurance that a product, process or service is in conformity with these standards;

"Certification programme" means an approved system of rules, procedures and management for carrying out certification;

"Conventional" means any material, production or processing practice that is not certified "organic" or "organic in conversion";

"Crop rotation" means the practice of alternating the species or families of annual and biennial crops grown on a specific field in a planned pattern or sequence so as to break weed, pest and disease cycles and to improve soil fertility and organic matter content;

"Distinctive mark" means a distinctive mark or a symbol, prescribed under section 5(1) of the South African Trade Marks Act, 1993 (Act No. 194 of 1993), that has been registered by the Executive Officer.  This logo is used by Ecocert-Afrisco to indicate that compliance with these standards has been verified;

"Executive Officer" means the officer designated under section 2(1) of the Trade Marks Act, 1993

“Extensive farming” means farming that corresponds to at least the stocking densities as indicated in these standards and includes the prescribed outdoor area requirements for the animals;

"Factory farming" means industrial management systems that are heavily reliant on veterinary and feed inputs not permitted in organic agriculture and/or where the animals are hindered from moving freely around 360°, or kept in obscurity or deprived from litter and thus include animals kept in batteries or fattening of chickens with more than 25kg weight/m2;

"Genetically engineered / modified organism/s and product/s (GMO, GMOs)" means organisms or products produced through techniques in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur natu­rally by mating and or natural recombination;

"Ingredient" means any substance including a food additive used in the manufacture or preparation of a food, or present in the final product, although possibly in a modified form;

"Inspection" means the examination of food systems for control of food, raw material, production, processing, and distribution including in-process and finished product testing, in order to verify that they conform to requirements;

“Intensive farming” means those practices that do not fit within the “factory farming” or “extensive farming” definitions;

"Irradiation" means high energy emissions from radio nucleotides, capable of altering food mole­cular structure for the purpose of controlling microbial contaminants, pathogens, parasites and pests in food, pre­serving food or inhibiting physiological processes such as sprouting or ripening;

"Labelling" means any written, printed or graphic representation that is present on the label of a product, accompanies the product or is displayed near the product;

"Nulliparous" means a female that has not borne offspring.

"Operation" means a farm, production unit or project involved in the production and/or processing of products;

"Operator" means any person who is involved at any stage of the chain of production, processing, storage, packaging, transporting, retailing, displaying, and importing of organic/organic in conversion products or who markets such products;

"Organic" means produced by the specific management practices indicated in these standards which are designed to—
            (a)  Enhance biological diversity within the whole system;
            (b)  Increase soil biological activity;
            (c)  Maintain long term soil fertility;
            (d) Recycle wastes of plant and animal origin in order to return nutrients to the land, thus minimising the use of non-renewable resources;
            (e) Rely on renewable resources in locally organised agricultural systems;
            (f) Promote the healthy use of soil, water and air as well as minimise all forms of pollution thereto that may result from agricultural practices;
            (g) Handle agricultural products with emphasis on careful processing methods in order to maintain the organic integrity and vital qualities of the product at all stages; and
            (h) become established on any existing farm through a period of conversion, the appropriate length of which is determined by site specific factors such as the history of the land, and type of crops and livestock to be produced;

"Organic chemistry" means the chemistry of organic compounds;

"Organic compounds" means chemical compounds containing carbon combined with hydrogen and often also with oxygen, nitrogen and other elements;

"Organic in conversion" means a production system which has adhered to these standards for at least one year and has been certified as such but which does not qualify as fully organic;

"Organic product" means a product which has been produced, processed and/or handled in com­pliance with these standards;

"Parallel production" means any production where the same unit is growing, breeding, handling or processing the same products in both a certified organic system and a non-certified or non-organic system.  A situation with “organic” and “in conversion” production of the same product is also parallel production.  Parallel production is a special instance of split production.

"Processed/processing" means cooking, baking, heating, drying, mixing, crushing, pressing, churning, separating, extracting juices or other material, peeling, fermenting, eviscerating, preserving, dehydrating, freezing or manufacturing which materially alters the flavour, keeping quality, or any other property or the making of any substantial change of form, but does not include refrigeration at temperatures which are above freezing point or any other treatment which merely retards or accelerates the natural processes of ripening or decomposition;

"Processing aid" means substances that are added to food during the processing but are removed from the food before it is finally packed:  Provided that the substance can also be converted into con­stituents normally present in the food or may still be present in the food in insignificant levels;

"Produce/d" means the operations undertaken to supply agricultural products in the state in which they occur on the farm, including initial packaging and labelling of the product;

"Product/s" means any commodity of vegetable or animal origin, or produced from a substance of vegetable or animal origin, and which consists wholly or partially of such substance (excluding water, salt and additives);

“SANAS” means the abbreviation for the South African National Accreditation System;

"Split production" means where only part of the farm or processing unit is certified as organic.  The remainder of the property can be (a) non-organic, (b) in conversion or (c) organic but not certified.  Also see parallel production.

"Substance/s" means all its components including active and inert ingredients;

"Synthetic" means a substance that is formulated or manufactured by a chemical process or by a pro­cess that chemically changes a substance extracted from naturally occurring plant or animal sources:  Provided that such term shall not apply to substances created by naturally occurring biological processes; 

"Teratogen/s" is any agent that causes a structural abnormality following foetal (human and animals) exposure during pregnancy

"The Act" means the Agricultural Product Standards Act, 1990 (Act No. 119 of 1990);  and

“Trade mark” means a trade mark as defined in the Trade Marks Act, 1993 (Act No. 194 of 1993).

"Wild harvested / harvesting / crafted" means products not cultivated, but found naturally growing in the wild;