Increasing awareness on the benefits of wholesome, naturally produced foods has seen Malaysians switch from conventionally grown produce to organic ones. But with all varieties of "organic" food flooding the retail shelves, how can consumers identify the genuine product? P. SELVARANI, ELIZABETH JOHN and WONG YING SIM find out.

ASKED if he had any organic vegetables, the vendor at the Lucky Garden wet market in Bangsar grabbed a bundle of fresh looking spinach and thrust it before me.

"But how do I know it's really organic?" I asked, noting that unlike most products which had some packaging or label to identify them as organic, this one did not.

"You have to trust me lah! I know the farmer," he responded.

But how does one ascertain if a product is really grown organically?
"It depends on the certification or accreditation scheme. Only certification will tell you whether the food that you buy is really organic," said Agriculture director-general Datuk Sofian Mohd Salleh.

Local producers, he stressed, should get their farms accredited under the Malaysian standards, which is the Skim Organik Malaysia (SOM), for consumers to verify the authenticity of their produce.

The certification means that the farm has undergone a rigorous auditing process by the department's Crop Quality Control Division.

"We certify the farms as organic only when we are satisfied that chemical fertilisers, pesticides or any growth regulators, antibiotics or hormones have not been used totally in the production system.

"But these are not the only criteria. They have to meet the other elements of SOM to earn the certification."

These include traceability, land and soil management, water management, production management, handling, storage, packaging, transport, workers' health and safety, waste management and the impact on the environment.

The SOM certification is modelled after the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) and is based on the Sirim MS 1529:2001 standards governing the production, processing, labelling and marketing of plant-based organically produced food.

The certification also takes into consideration the WHO and FAO Codex standards for production, processing, labelling and marketing of organic foods.

Once accredited, the farms will be able to use the SOM logo which comes with a specific serial number for identification.

At present, the department only certifies organically grown fresh fruits, vegetables and rice.

"We have not started any certification for processed organic foods in the country.

"So if you see a processed product such as a beverage or flour bearing the SOM logo, then you ought to be suspicious because you don't know whether additives have gone into the product," Sofian said.

At present only about one per cent of the country's farm land is used to cultivate organic foods.

The department hopes to increase the area of organic farms from the present 2,367ha to some 20,000ha by 2010.

"There is a lot of potential in this sector because of consumer awareness and the high prices that organic produce can fetch."