Organic standards have developed in different countries over many years and there is at present no regulation on organic products which is directly applicable world-wide.  A confusing number of organic standards make orientation of organic operators, especially in developing countries, quite difficult. 

The choice of  the most appropriate organic certification standard depends mainly on the final market of the organic product. The most important import countries for organic products and an increasing number of production countries have regulated the organic markets, i.e. a product must be certified according to the applicable regulation in order to be marketed as "organic":

The most important regulated markets are:

• The European Union with its regulation on organic production Regulation (EC) N° 834/2007 and (EC) N° 889/2008; former: (EEC) N° 2092/91
• The US organic market with its National Organic Program (NOP)
• The Japanese organic market with its Japanese Agricultural Standard (JAS)
• Switzerland, Israel, Argentina, Australia have set up organic regulations that are considered equivalent to the Regulation (EC) N° 834/2007.
• more and more countries world-wide set up their own local organic regulations or standards

Additionally there is a wide range of private organic label standards, mostly owned by farmers associations.  Depending on the country of marketing, a private organic label may be very important because consumers only trust "their" label. 

Examples for important private organic labels:

• Bio Suisse (Switzerland),
• Demeter (world-wide)
• Naturland (Germany & world-wide),
• Soil Association (UK)
• KRAV (Sweden).

Normally each operator in the production chain (farmer, processor, trader, etc.) must be inspected and certified each year.  For groups of smallholder farmers, special certification procedures have been developed.