Organic certification for flowers

Courtesy: Organic certification for flowers

Australian approved certifying organisations

The Department has several approved certifying organisations that manage the certification process of organic and bio-dynamic operators in Australia. These certifying organisations perform a number of functions on the Department’s behalf:

• Assess organic and bio-dynamic operators to determine compliance to the National Standard for Organic and Bio-Dynamic Produce and importing country requirements.
• Issue a Quality Management Certificate (QM Certificate) to organic operators to recognise compliance to export requirements.
• Issue Organic Produce Certificates (Export Documentation) for consignments of organic and bio-dynamic produce being exported.

As of 2015, there are seven approved certifying organisations:

• AUS-QUAL Pty Ltd (AUSQUAL)
• Australian Certified Organic (ACO)
• Bio-Dynamic Research Institute (BDRI)
• NASAA Certified Organic (NCO)
• Organic Food Chain (OFC)
• Safe Food Production Queensland (SFQ)
• Tasmanian Organic-dynamic Producers (TOP)

There are 2567 certified organic businesses reported in Australia in 2014. They include 1707 primary producers, 719 processors and manufacturers, 141 wholesalers and retailers plus other operators.^[65]

Australia does not have a national logo or seal to identify which products are certified organic, instead the logos of the individual certifying organisations are used

China

In China, the organic certification is administered by a government agency named Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People’s Republic of China (CNCA). While the implementation of certification works, including site checking, lab test on soil, water, product qualities are performed by the China Quality Certification Center (CQC) which is an agency of Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).The organic certification procedures in china are performed according to China Organic Standard GB/T 19630.1-4—2011 which was issued in year 2011. This standard has governed standard procedure for Organic certification process performed by CQC, including application, inspection, lab test procedures, certification decision and post certification administration. The certificate issued by CQC are valid for one year.

There are two logos that are currently used by the CQC for labeling products with Organic Certification, these are the Organic Logo and CQC Logo. No conversion to organic Logo now.

There were more than 19000 valid certificates and 66 organic certification bodies until 2018 in China.

India

In India, APEDA regulates the certification of organic products as per National Standards for Organic Production. “The NPOP standards for production and accreditation system have been recognized by European Commission and Switzerland as equivalent to their country standards. Similarly, USDA has recognized NPOP conformity assessment procedures of accreditation as equivalent to that of US. With these recognitions, Indian organic products duly certified by the accredited certification bodies of India are accepted by the importing countries.” Organic food products manufactured and exported from India are marked with the India Organic certification mark issued by the APEDA. APEDA has recognized 11 inspection certification bodies, some of which are branches of foreign certification bodies, others are local certification bodies.