Żywność ekologiczna w prawie USA i Unii Europejskiej

Abstract

The demand for, characterized by the special quality, organic products causes ongoing development the organic food market in highly developed countries. Both in the EU and the USA has been issued legal acts on the production and distribution of organic products. On the basis of an agreement between the USA and EU systems for organic production are recognized as equivalent to each other, which means that organic food manufactured and labeled in the US and the EU can be distributed as organic, without any additional requirements respectively in the EU and the USA. In the article authors compared the EU and US regulations concerning organic food, including proposed a definition of organic food that has not been explicitly defined in EU nor USA legislation. Comparison of the two legal systems leads to the conclusion that the concept of organic food is similar in the EU and the USA, however the American regulation is more flexible and much stronger is focused on protecting the interests of entrepreneurs and farmers (and not solely to protection the interests of consumers, as is in the regulation of the EU). In both systems public aid is applied, however in the EU legislation the main aim of support is the improvement of the environment. The authors conclude that the aim of the public support should be primarily to increase the competitiveness of EU production of organic food.