TOS has reflected and reported many times on the process of both certification and accreditation.The ISO 65 was included as a requirement for organic certification bodies in the late 1990s in the EU and recently there is also a demand that certification bodies are accredited according to this norm. IFOAM, somewhat reluctantly perhaps, integrated almost all ISO 65 requirements into its norms for accreditation, leaving aside only those apparently not applicable. Many countries have included implicit or explicit references to the ISO 65 over the years. In many cases accreditation was also understood as being part of the deal.

ISO 65 has been criticised that, on the one hand, it ‘is not enough’, and on the other hand that it is too prescriptive and not sufficiently scale-sensitive. For example, ISO 65 says nothing about how to inspect or verify organic production; it gives no answers to most of the pertinent questions of the industry such as how to expose fraud, how to manage group certification, how often produce should be tested, what are the most important skills for an organic inspector, etc. In comparison, it has very demanding requirements for the organisation of a certification body, for its quality system, for written policy and procedures, etc. Consequently, when such a norm is put into the hands of national accreditation bodies, knowing little of the agriculture sector and even less of the organic sector, they emphasise all the procedural and documentary requirements at the expense of assessment of the actual operations. This combination of not enough emphasison the practical application of the certification scheme and too much attention to procedures has two results. Firstly, accreditation to the ISO 65is of very little value as it adds little reliability to the organic certification process. Secondly, and worse, is that it forces certification bodies to focus on procedures and documentation, not only in regard to their own work, but also for what they demand from operators.

With the recent revision of the ISO 65 some improvements can be seen. For example, it is now a lot clearer that the norm is for the certification bodies and not for the certification scheme. This makes it easier for all involved to see that accreditation to ISO 65 is not enough. There is,therefore, a need to formulate a ‘certification scheme’ that includes items relevant to the sector; a need that was continually raised by players in the sector, such as IFOAM. Unfortunately the draft ISO 17065 (which is the name of the new standard) has also introduced a lot of extra detail, most of which was derived from the earlier ‘guidance’ by the International Accreditation Forum. It is hard to understand why accreditation bodies must obsess so much over details. In the end it is hardly ever those details that will be the benchmark of a reliable certification body. Furthermore, it is unfortunate that the ISO 65 is not leaning more towards transparency, recognising that transparency has the triple function of forcing operators to behave better;giving the public better insight and realistic expectations regarding the certification system; and, forcing certification bodies and governments to doa better job. It is hard not to believe that this resistance to transparency is mainly about protecting the conformity assessment profession from scrutiny, rather than about protecting the clients. The value of the old ISO65 for organic certification is questionable and the value of the ISO 17065seems to be questionable as well.

IFOAM, driven by its unfortunate objective that its accreditation should bea ‘better’ guarantee of organic systems than the regulatory systems, has put its efforts into getting IFOAM accreditation recognised by governments.Consequently, it has largely yielded to the process of bureaucratisation of certification. The formulation of the International Requirements for Organic Certification Bodies – the IROCB – developed by the joint FAO, IFOAM and UNCTAD spearheaded International Task Force of Harmonization and Equivalence, was a great step in the right direction. The IROCB is referenced by the EU and it is high time that IFOAM clarifies that conformity with IROCB can be the basis for being part of what is called the ‘IFOAM Guarantee System’. Unfortunately, the current proposal from the IFOAM Board does not include this, which means that IFOAM is undermining recognition of the IROCB.

The US National Organic Program (NOP) should be commended for its high level of transparency in its operations. We note that the NOP plans to bring its certification bodies inline with the ISO 65. Perhaps the NOP should re-think this and first assess the extent to which the new ISO 17065 is delivering what it should, and explore, if not the IROCB, what would be more appropriate as a benchmark. The new NOP head tells TOS that they are assessing the use of the IOAS, and other possible options, for providing NOP audits. All efforts to reduce redundancy are welcomed.