Quality of organic animal products

Abstract

'Organic’ is a labelling term that denotes products that have been produced in accordance with organic standards. There is a community regulation on organic livestock production (council regulation n°1804/1999) that is applied in France (24/08/2000, CC REPAB F). There is a high demand for organic products in industrialised countries. It is therefore important to carefully consider the nutritional and sensory qualities and the safety of organic foods in order to identify problems and issues that require attention. The production of organic food of animal origin is done in many ways and uses many breeds. Therefore, a real comparison with conventionally produced food is difficult and there is a limited amount of published data. No clear trends have been established in terms of nutritional and organoleptic quality differences between organic and conventional foods. Organically produced food has lower levels of veterinary drugs and pesticides. The ’organic’ label provides also assurance to consumers that no food ingredient has been subject to irradiation and that genetically modified organisms have been excluded. However, it seems that organic farming could lead to a higher risk for the contamination of products by microbes present in animals and in manure. In summary, in some cases, organic food gets better marks, in others, conventionally produced food scores higher.