Certification - 'Tis the Season for Applications and Organic Plans

Hard to believe it is mid-March already. If you are renewing your organic certification, your Certification Body (CB) will likely hope to receive your application for renewal before April 1. The standards require you to include in your application your Organic Plan which is a production plan for the year. The CB will review the various inputs and procedures you are using to make sure they conform with the Canadian Organic Standards. The Organic Plan also includes various farm maps, rotation plans, farm monitoring records, and other documents as appropriate. In preparing your plan, last year's plan will be very helpful, and if you did it on computer last year, that will likely reduce your time this year.

For some CBs the application form is the organic plan. For some CBs they have key points of information that must be supplied and whether you use their form or not is not important as long as all necessary information is given to them so that they can review your application in time to assign an inspector to proceed with the inspection.

For most renewals you should apply before April 1. You must apply well before your 12 month certification expires so that you can be inspected before your certification expires and when the crop to be certified is still growing in the field. For transition you must apply more than 12 months prior to the harvest of your certified crop and be inspected when the transition crop is still growing in the field.

The Organic Plan is also very useful as a record of your activities. For traceability purposes you need to have a plan of what you expect to do, and a record of what you actually do during the season. Both your plan and your records should be as complete as possible so that you can prove your organic practices.

In your application make sure to inform the CB where your crop will be sold so that they can determine whether it needs to be certified to Canadian, US (NOP), European, Japanese or other standards. In the future we are hoping for international agreements on equivalency with other countries but these are not yet in place.

As the year progresses make sure to keep your CB informed with changes you make to your Organic Plan, so that you do not get surprises at your next certification renewal.