Emily Brown Rosen’s Recent Comments

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  to whom does it apply?

  Tad,
  The USDA ruling applies to all certification agencies that are accredited by USDA. (we reserve the term "accreditation" to mean the approval process of the certification agencies, in this case by USDA. IFOAM is an international accreditor) If the Mexican certifier is USDA accredited, then they are responsible for hiring, supervising and evaluating all inspectors they use. The practice has been that the certifier will inspect 20% of the grower group farms a year, and that the grower group must provide sufficient oversight of all members to make sure this is a good sampling. I'm not sure who is hiring the 'village level' inspectors you describe, but if it is not the accredited certifier, then it may not be permited, unless we can work out a better understanding with USDA of how to structure this.  I don't think this recent announcement is really a done deal, it has not been consistently provided to all USDA certifiers yet, and may be applied in a case by case basis as certifiers are renewed. There also is a lot of interest in finding a solution that is not so draconian.

  There is a list of all USDA accredited agencies at http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/CertifyingAgents/Accredited.h ...
  So it is easy to check if the agency is in good standing.  Granted, there are problems with the current system of accreditation of the USDA approved agencies, but at least there is a system for oversight.

  EmilyOn Implications of the last organic latte posted 2 years, 7 months ago 11 Responses

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  java justice

  Not correct, Sam. Organic inspectors are not "accredited" by USDA.  Inspectors are contractors or emplolyees of USDA-accredited certifiers. Certifiers must demonstrate to USDA that they hire competent inpsectors with sufficient expertise, that they receive regular training and evaluation, and that they are free from conflict of interest.  Otherwise, the certifiers could lose their accreditation. As the ruling stated "The internal inspection procedures,  whereby each production unit is inspected, was overseen by members of the grower group who were not required to have sufficient expertise, be subject to an annual performance review or to disclose conflicts of interest." Conflict of interest will be the difficult issue to solve for any inspector hired directly by a grower group and not by the third party certification agency. On Implications of the last organic latte posted 2 years, 7 months ago 11 Responses