Following two years of mutual consultations and comparing of laws and regulations related to organic agriculture, Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the UK’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) reached consensus on an organic equivalency agreement. On May 22, in a ceremony attended by the UK’s Trade Envoy to Taiwan Lord Faulkner of Worcester and representatives of the competent authorities for agriculture from the two sides, Representative Vincent Chin-Hsiang Yao of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK and Representative John Dennis of the British Office Taipei signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Mutual Recognition of Organic Products, thus completing the process of an organic equivalency agreement.

The MOA states that since the Organic Agriculture Promotion Act went into effect on May 30, 2019, Taiwan has already signed seven organic equivalency agreements (for mutual recognition of organic certification) with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, India, and Paraguay. It has also launched activities to promote trade in organic agricultural products with these countries, with trade volume constantly increasing. The signing of organic equivalency agreements not only facilitates access to ingredients for processing of organic products by domestic companies and provides Taiwanese consumers with more organic agriproduct options, it also enlarges overseas markets for Taiwan’s organic agriproducts. In recent years the MOA has continued to guide organic product businesses to participate in local trade shows, organize marketing activities at sales outlets, and do business matchmaking in countries with substantial demand for organic agriproducts such as the US and Japan, thereby promoting exports of domestically produced organic products. In the future the MOA will add the UK to the list of target markets for exports of organic agriproducts and implement relevant export guidance measures.

The MOA points out that the UK is the first country in Europe to formally sign a MOU to establish trade partner relations for organic agriproducts. Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, organic processed products made in the two countries using organic crops and livestock ingredients which have been substantially transformed during processing and meet certification standards can be sold in the other country with “organic”labelling. This is a very significant development for the promotion of trade and agricultural cooperation between Taiwan and European countries.