International Requirements for Organic Certification Bodies (IROCB)

International Requirements for Organic Certification Bodies (IROCB)

Year of publication 2008

Pages 27 p.

Product type Book (stand-alone)

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) The International Task Force on Harmonization and Equivalence in Organic Agriculture (ITF) was convened from 2003 to 2008 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). It served as an open-ended platform for dialogue between private and public institutions involved in trade and regulatory activities in the organic agriculture sector. T he overall objective of the ITF was to facilitate trade in organic products as a response to difficulties faced by organic producers and exporters due to the hundreds of different organic regulations, standards and labels worldwide. Not only do organic production standards vary, but requirements for organic certification bodies to conduct third party conformity assessment also vary. This causes difficulties for governments and certification bodies to recognize and accept organic products certifi ed in other systems or programs, and therefore also for organic producers to get certified organic products accepted in different markets. The ITF developed a normative document, “International Requirements for Organic Certification Bodies” (IROCB) as a tool to enable governments and organic certification and accreditation bodies to recognize certification bodies outside of their own system, and thus facilitate the acceptance of organic products certified by these bodies.