Day two of the CCNASWP17 meeting began with Fiji presenting its Regional Kava Standard–Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), document for members of the region to comment on and endorse.

Fiji, including other kava trading regions, has been pushing for the Kava Standard since 2015. In 2020, the region adopted the Regional Kava Standard and amended it in 2023 with regional endorsement during the CCNASWP16. The adoption of the standard in Step 5 has allowed the Kava trading region to expand its Kava trade.

In 2023, the Codex Committee for Methods and Sampling Analysis (CCMAS) 42 session highlighted a few outstanding issues and recommended that North America and the South West Pacific (NASWP) region revise the SOP and provide descriptions of how the final determination is to be made.

With these, the Regional Coordinator has been tasked with providing a revised SOP to be submitted and presented in the upcoming CCMAS meeting in May 2025.

The revised SOP was presented in the morning session, and in the meeting, Fiji together with other regional CCNASWP members have come to a consensus to have the initial SOP replenished to a more simple and affordable Kava testing using a qualitative assessment of Kava nobility using a colorimetric UV acetone extract method.

The CCNASWP17 Chairperson, Dr Andrew Tukana, with advice from the Codex Secretariat, welcomed the proposed changes in the SOP and advised regional members to complete and amend the document before submitting it to the Codex Secretariat in March 2025 for their further review.

The NASWP region will continue developing its Regional Kava Standard SOP to access new markets. 

ENDS

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