Abstract
The group certification concept is well established and consistently implemented under various certification schemes, such as organic. There is a common understanding of scope, principles and common criteria for group certification. Implementing an Internal Control System (ICS) is the centrepiece of group certification, allowing the certifier to delegate the monitoring of standard compliance of single group members to the ICS of the group; whereas the certifier evaluates proper functioning of the ICS when conducting the annual on-site inspection of the group. Finally, and based on a well-functioning ICS, the certifier issues a certificate authorising a group’s products to be labelled in line with applicable (organic) standards. Centralised marketing is compulsory, the certificate is issued to the entire group, single group members may not use the certificate. Group certification is opening the door for small scale farmers to access specialised markets such as regulated by sustainability or other quality standards. Targeted training programmes for groups’ representatives are needed to support implementation of group certification. In addition, and to create robust ICS systems, groups need appropriate software tools to ensure that all necessary ICS procedures throughout the workflow are applied consistently and documented in a verifiable manner. These tools must be affordable for grower groups, designed for global use, and suitable to administer certification according to various standards.
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Notes
- 1.
G.A.P. stands for Good Agricultural Practice and GLOBALG.A.P. is the standard that assures it.
- 2.
Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007, OJ L 150, pp. 1–92.
- 3.
In January 2018, UTZ and Rainforest Alliance merged, announcing to publish a new certification programme in 2019.
- 4.
Chain of custody: “The FSC chain of custody (CoC) is the path taken by products from the forest, or in the case of recycled materials from the moment when the material is reclaimed, to the point where the product is sold with an FSC claim and/or it is finished and FSC labelled. The CoC includes each stage of sourcing, processing, trading, and distribution where progress to the next stage of the supply chain involves a change of product ownership” (FSC 2017, p. 26).
- 5.
The first edition of the Manual for Quality Assurance in smallholder organisations was published by Naturland in 2000. IMO Switzerland assisted Naturland with the revision of the first edition.
- 6.
Organic System Plan (OSP) is a defined terminology according to §205.2 of the USDA Organic Regulations: “A plan of management of an organic production or handling operation that has been agreed to by the producer or handler and the certifying agent and that includes written plans concerning all aspects of agricultural production or handling described in (…) the regulations (…)”. The USDA Organic Regulations are available at: https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic/, last accessed 31 January 2019.
- 7.
www.group-integrity.com, last accessed 31 January 2019.
- 8.
www.ecert-basic.com, last accessed 31 January 2019.
- 9.
www.organic-services.com, last accessed 31 January 2019.
- 10.
The development of Group Integrity was supported by the DEG—Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (German Investment and Development GmbH), a member of the KfW Group.
- 11.
Participatory Guarantee System; for additional information, please visit, for example: https://www.ifoam.bio/en/pgs-basics/, last accessed 31 January 2019.
- 12.
Ecert is a registered trademark of Intact GmbH, Lebring, Austria.
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Steidle, M., Herrmann, G.A. (2019). Group Certification: Market Access for Smallholder Agriculture. In: Schmidt, M., Giovannucci, D., Palekhov, D., Hansmann, B. (eds) Sustainable Global Value Chains. Natural Resource Management in Transition, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14877-9_34
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