Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is the food regulator in the country and is responsible for regulating organic food in domestic market and imports. FSSAI has notified domestic standards for organic products recognizing National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP), Participatory Guarantee System for India (PGS) or any other equivalent procedure as pre-requisite for qualifying the organic food claim in domestic market.  FSSAI has notified Food Safety and Standards (Organic Foods) Regulations, 2017 in the Gazette of India on 29.12.2017.

These Regulations require organic food to comply with the provisions of any one of the existing certification systems - National Programme for Organic Production under Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) or Participatory Guarantee System for India (PGS) under Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare. Organic foods are required to comply with the requirements of labelling of FSSAI in addition to that of NPOP or PGS-India. Therefore, a proper system is in place to regulate the organic foods in the country.  

This information was given by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

Organic food regulation requires recognized certification and compliant labelling to substantiate organic claims in the market. FSSAI requires organic foods in domestic trade and imports to comply with notified domestic standards and to be certified under recognized systems such as NPOP or PGS, with producers also meeting FSSAI labelling requirements; these certification and labelling obligations form the regulatory mechanism for organic claims under the Food Safety and Standards (Organic Foods) Regulations, 2017.