Recently U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a proposal to modify organic regulations. The proposed rule is intended to increase oversight of industry and institute more procedures for certifiers and industry members to follow. Several provisions of the 2018 Farm Bill and recommendations by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) have been included in the proposed rule, which will update USDA organic regulation 7 cfr 205.
What are the Main Changes?
Through the National Organic Program (NOP) third-party certifiers are accredited and trained to certify that farms and businesses meet the national organic standards. These certifiers will have more responsibilities, starting with increased training for all staff who conduct certification reviews. They will have to start conducting unannounced inspections for at least 5% of the operations they certify, too. Certifiers are being called upon to identify operations and products which are at a high risk of organic fraud (when nonorganic products are intentionally represented as being organic). They are also being asked to share compliance-related information with each other for various purposes, such as “to verify supply chains and conduct investigations.”
Oversight for certain handlers of organic products will be increased significantly. Handlers in the middle of the supply chain who buy, sell, or trade organic products may now be required to be certified organic as well. As Attorney Ge Song explains, “importers and brokers who buy or sell organic products or even firms who negotiate sales without taking physical custody of the goods may now have this additional requirement.”
As we are seeing elsewhere, USDA is interested in more supply chain traceability and wants certifiers to conduct traceability audits as well as verify origin and chain of custody of products. Improvements in farm-to-market traceability also include record keeping requirements for farms and businesses to be able to trace products back to suppliers and forward to customers for better tracking of chain of custody. Importers of organic products will have additional requirements for shipment tracing through the port of entry via U.S. Custom’s ACE system. Organic imports from certain countries that USDA has determined use an equivalent system of organic certification (such as the EU and Japan) are required to have a NOP Import Certificate. Under the proposed rule, USDA will require that all organic imports must have an electronic NOP Import Certificate or a similar document for each physical shipment.
This rule will impact most industry participants: USDA-accredited certifiers, organic inspectors, farmers, and processors, and other business partners (brokers, importers, exporters of USDA organic products). We expect increased enforcement of organic standards once this rule is finalized.
