Professionalising
certification bodies
certification bodies
Mayacert is one of the leading multi-certification bodies for agriculture, apiculture and food processing in Latin America. It certifies agains more than 20 private and public standards, amongst others USDA and EU organic, Biosuisse, UTZ, Fair Trade, and many more. Overall, 95 people work for the company. Whilst the head office is still in Guatemala City, every country has its own local office as well. About 25 people work in administration, the rest of the staff is mostly ‘on the road’, inspecting their clients’ farms and manufacturing sites.
“If we had known that there was an off-the-shelf-tool like this, we might have started to work with it much earlier. Looking back, I wished we had not tried to reinvent the wheel by inventing our own software tool but had looked for what is already out there. In 2018, Javier Montanez, Organic Services’ client manager for Ecert Basic, came to visit us. This really got us going. Today, all our office staff work with the system every day, our auditors use it every second day on average. We are very happy with the system!"
(Noé Alejandro Riva, regional director of MAYACERT)
Read our article... Lessons learned from MAYACERT
The Turkish certifier ETKO was established in 1996 and certifies organic food and feed material as well as textiles and cosmetics. The certification body can issue certificates on various public and private standards, such as GOTS, Turkish organic, EU and USDA NOP regulations and GlobalGAP. The main office being located in Izmir/ Turkey, but ETKO is also active in Cyprus, Ukraine, Romania, Korea, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The certifier decided to use Ecert Basic shortly after learning about the tool at BIOFACH 2016. ETKO appreciates the streamlined management of certification data and improved management of the certification workflow that Ecert Basic offers.
Certification Alliance is an alliance of certification bodies designed to make certification an affordable and doable step for organic producers in countries with small organic markets. Certification Alliance includes certifiers in China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Combodia and Vietnam. Four of them (see below) are already working with Ecert Basic.
Organic Agricultre Certification Thailand (ACT) is an independent certification body in Thailand. It was established in 1995 through the initiative of sustainable agriculture advocates led by Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN), NGOs, academics, consumer organizations, media representatives, and eco-friendly shops. ACT has been accredited by IFOAM since 2001 and certifies against the EU and Canadian public organic standard as well as against their own domestic standard.
ICERT is an independent certification body operating mainly in Indonesia. It certifies against organic standards such as EU, USDA and Canadian organic, UTZ, Rainforest Alliance and 4C for coffee producers in various Asian countries.
Spearheaded by the advocates of organic and sustainable agriculture, the Organic Certification Center of the Philippines (OCCP) was formed in response to the need for a national organic inspection and certification program.
An independent, private, membership-based organic standard setting and organic certification body, OCCP was the first certifying body to be accredited by the Department of Agriculture in 2001.
Book Contribution
"Group Certification: Market Access for Smallholder Agriculture"
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