Certified Organic Oils

[Guest guest]

And old one .. from Martin.

 

 

aromamedical2003 <aromamedical-2

Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:33:03 -0000

Organically Certified oils

 

I thought some of you may be interested to read the latest offerings

on this subject on Crissie Wildwood's web site:

 

www.chrissie-wildwood.com

 

She has shown that the committee who advise the UK Soil Association

on setting OG standards are mainly comprised of representatives of

companies involved in selling products. Such a committee cannot

possibly be classified as independent of vested trade interests.

 

Here in the UK and in France many oil suppliers are claiming their

essential oils are " certified organic " . However, when the

certifying organizations are checked they are next to worthless. It

has become clear that there are no sound organic certification

organizations throughout Europe. They are all rubber stamping, paper

pushing bureaucrats. For example, our Soil Association claim to

inspect growers in the UK once a year. If that visit is pre

arranged I do not yet know, but one can be sure such a visit will

mean certain farmers quickly hiding any non organic methods they have

been using.

 

I can recall many moons ago when I was in the print trade, that our

Government 'Factory inspectors' would tell the company when they were

going to visit and suddenly there was a mad rush to clear the place

up and put all the guards back onto the machines that the operators

had removed.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that there are no organically

grown oils as certainly there are, what I am saying is you cannot

trust any certification systems in Europe. You will be paying

premium prices with absolutely no assurance that what you get is in

fact produced according to the guidelines of organic growing. You

certainly cannot trust any oils that bear OG labels where the country

of origin is outside of the routine area covered by the certifying

body. Here the Soil Association were planning on awarding OG status

*based on what the oil suppliers told them* for oils from Madagascar,

Rosewood and Sandalwood. They have clearly been conned by certain

suppliers who -SAY- their producers comply with the guidelines-yeah-

yeah-yeah!!

 

In the USA I do not know if the OG certification organizations are

similar to our own, but all I can say is buyer beware.

 

Certainly there are genuine producers around the world who grow to OG

standards, or who wildcraft to ecological guidelines. How you as a

therapist can get satisfactory evidence though is another ball game.

As it stands anyone can claim " all their oils are OG produced "

and get away with it because no enforcement agencies prosecute them

for fraud.

 

It makes little difference if an essential oil used in massage or by

inhalation is organically grown or not. Most people get a hundred

times more synthetic chemicals in their food every day than is ever

going to get through the skin from external application of an oil.

We also take in all kinds of nasty chemicals in most processed foods

and from atmospheric pollution. That is why breast milk throughout

most of the world is contaminated with pesticide residues, PCBs and

even DDT 30 years after it was banned.

 

I would personally only be interested in OG oils for internal use, or

if I was 100% certain that the premium I paid was fed back to the

producers rather than just lining the pockets of oil

traders.

 

I am sure there will be more to come on this in the near future. So

if it is a subject that interests you, keep an eye on Chrissie's

web site as she updates it regularly.

 

Martin Watt

http://www.aromamedical.com/