United States Of America - USDA Recognition

NARDAP now includes the subprogram pertaining to the recognition of certification bodies by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) whose name is “USDA Recognition Sub-Program”. This sub-program is aiming at the acceptance of organic products on the United States of America market.

What need does this subprogram address?

In order to certify organic products intended for sale in the United States, any one of the following conditions must be met by the certification body:

• accredited directly by the USDA
• included on the List of Certifying Bodies accredited by a foreign government and recognized by the USDA
• accredited by the competent autority of the country with which the USDA has signed a mutual equivalency agreement.

The USDA recognition sub-program that is managed by the CAEQ is operated in accordance with the third above mentioned condition. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) signed in June 2009 an equivalency agreement with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) for the purpose of organic products reciprocal acceptance.

Within the context of the application of the agreement, the CFIA takes the responsability of all products certified by the bodies it has accredited, regardless of their origin, when they are intended to be sold on the USA market.

Which organizations can apply?

This USDA Recognition Sub-program is offered to any organic certification bodies no matter where it is based and in which countries it is operating.

Any certification body not already accredited by the USDA may apply to the CAEQ for accreditation to CFIA to certify organic products according to Canadian standards and the terms of the equivalency agreement above-mentioned, if these products are intended for sale in the United States of America.

CAEQ Role

All requests for initial accreditation or for an accreditation extension will be handled by the CAEQ following the accreditation process that is specified in the Internal Regulations Pertaining to Accreditation for Certifiers.

Once the accreditation or the accreditation extension has been granted, the CAEQ will notify the CFIA in order to get the name of the certification body included on the list published on its Website and them to notify the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service.

What are the actions of CAEQ?

In order to enable the certification body to demonstrate compliance of its certification system with USDA requirements, the CAEQ offers formal accreditation with the scope of the equivalency agreement between the USDA and CFIA. In the course of the accreditation process, the CAEQ reviews the certification body’s quality manual and assesses its level of implementation with regards to the terms prescribed in the equivalency agreement between Canada and USA. The certification body is provided with the assessment reports prepared by the CAEQ covering the document review as well as the regular on-the-spot evaluation, surveillance and multiannual re-assessment of its activities required to maintain accreditation.

With regards to standards, the CAEQ offers the access to a database that includes the main national standards and in addition a gap analysis between most of them. Consequently, if a certification body is already certifying products to the Canadian Organic Standard and wishes to offer to its clients a organic certification program compliant to the equivalency agreement above mentionned, it will be able to instruct inspectors to verify any complementary or additional requirements in order to certify the products intended to be sold on the USA market. It will then be deemed compliant.

How does CAEQ facilitate your task of requesting recognition?

Since the CAEQ specializes in accreditation services for organizations carrying out the certification of agricultural and food products, the CAEQ uses only one accreditation reference manual for assessing certification bodies. This accreditation manual contains criteria that include both ISO Guide 65 as well as IROCB ⁽¹⁾ requirements.

Besides its accreditation, the CAEQ offers additional services such as certified product database management, standards comparisons for the purpose of equivalence determination, etc.

Contact without delay Anass Soussi or Denis Paul Bouffard who will present the procedure to follow and will guide you in submitting your application for the NOP scope of accreditation.

• FAQ United States