The Global Organic Market Access (GOMA) project2 , a joint FAO, IFOAM and UNCTAD initiative, works towards reducing the barriers to trade in organic products. In seeking to reduce those barriers, GOMA works to facilitate harmonization and especially equivalence between different countries’, and private sector, systems for organic standards and conformity assessment.

This paper looks into the fifth option mentioned above. The purpose is to clarify if regional or bilateral trade agreements can be a useful, complementary path for the facilitation of market access for organic products. In exploring this, the paper first gives an outline of the global system for trade agreements in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Regional agreements are bound to follow the rules set in those agreements, at least for the WTO members, which include most important global trading powers except for Russia. In order to be relevant for the scope of the paper, regional trade agreements also need to deliver more, in terms of reduction of barriers, than the WTO agreement already does.