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ISEAL Alliance (2008) ISEAL Common Requirements for Producer Group Certification

Report, Common Requirements for the Certification of Producer Groups P035 - Public Version 1 - November, 2008
ISEAL Alliance

Document:
ISEAL_requirements_groupcertification.pdf

Abstract
Group certification evolved as a response to the constraints on small-holder producers to be
able to access certification. Group certification is a practice of organising individual
producers into structured groups and shifting responsibility in part from an external audit to
internal inspections. In order to bring about this shift, the group must have an internal
management system in place that instils confidence that the individual group members are
meeting the requirements of the standard. At the same time, the management system plays
a vital role in supporting a learning organisation whose members seek to improve their
practices over time. The group certification requirements in this document recognise that we
are seeking to support learning organisations in a way that instils confidence in the
performance of the group and its individual members.
This document focuses on requirements for the credible structure and functioning of a group.
It does not include performance requirements that are specific to any one standard but is
intended to complement them. It applies primarily to agricultural producers but is intended to
be generic enough for application to other sectors. The requirements are presented in an
order that is logical for application by a learning organisation. Underlying these requirements
is the assumption that a producer group relies on a management system to ensure that it
consistently meets external standards and can respond to changing market requirements.

Keywords: Smallholder producers, group certification

Relevance to our study:
Although organic group certification based on an Internal Control System (ICS) is presently mostly applied in countries outside the EU, and not yet officially permitted in the EU, an increasingly number of small producer groups in countries like Italy or Spain set up Internal Management & Control systems and the external certification of the group is based to some extent on their internal management system with e.g. only very short external audits per individual farmer. Permitting producer group certification in EU has long been a hot debate and could help to reduce audit costs in some situations substantially.

Relevancy on a scale from 1 to 5 = 4

Review status: Suggested
Review started on 2009–05–28
Reviewed by Florentine Meinshausen ?

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