The National Association for Sustainable Agriculture (NASA) has a
certification system for organic produce and has produced a standard
applicable to honey.  When I queried this some years back there was one
beekeeper in Australia who was deemed to have met all the standards and to
be qualified to label his/her honey as "organic".
 
I now know of at least one other - a beekeeper on Kangaroo Island with 12
hives who owns land adjoining a National Park.  He has paid the $160 fee for
the testing and gone through the paperwork.  The limitations on his
procedures are that the hives cannot be moved since he would no longer
exercise control over the foraging area, the honey must not be heated during
or after extraction (there may be others). I do not believe that he is
banned from purchasing foundation. He was proud that the testing procedure
found no measurable contamination.  However the largest producer on Kangaroo
Island who migrates hives continuously has also had his honey tested, with
identical results.
 
The belief of the organic honey enthusiast is that there are health food
shops galore out there who will buy NASA certified honey at a cost that will
repay the investment.
 
I doubt this.
 
There are however very good reasons for stringent quality control of honey
production.   The honey packers in Australia have been working on adopting
the International Standard for some years and have produced a Code of
Practice for producers and packers.  I find the code itself sensible and the
honey packers are in a position to enforce this by refusing to buy from any
beekeeper who will not comply with the code.  This is control by market forces.
 
Kangaroo Island has developed its own Quality Assurance Programme which is
open to all Island businesses.  Again the cost in my view is not reflected
in increased profit margins.  To go through the quality assurance programme
will cost $400 annually.
 
I question the assumption that quality control does not happen without an
expensive bureaucratic procedure.  When the auditing process fails, all
producers will be tainted with the suspicion that the certification is
worthless.
 
Every honey producer is responsible for the quality of his/her product. We
are proud of the quality of our honey and continually review systems.
 
Whilst there is demand for high quality packaging and labelling (including
bar codes) all of which we consider necessary expenditure,  we have not had
any feed-back on quality assurance certification.   We are being continually
informed that certification of quality assurance will enable higher prices
to be charged and open new market opportunities.  I have seen no evidence
that this statement is true, at least as far as Kangaroo Island honey is
concerned.
 
Betty McAdam
 
 
 
HOG BAY APIARY
Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island
j.h. & e. mcadam<[log in to unmask]
http://kigateway.eastend.com.au/hogbay/hogbay1.htm