services

¡Con el crecimiento de la comunidad y mercado orgánico, así también crecen los servicios en español de CCOF! Ahora ofrecemos servicios en español para las empresas que son procesadores y manejadores. Nuestro nuevo Plan de Sistema Orgánico (OSP) para Manejadores en español está disponible en www.ccof.org/documents. Además, hemos actualizado nuestra página de recursos en español, www.ccof.org/espanol, cuyo incluye una variedad de formas, folletos y otros recursos en español.

As the organic industry grows, so do CCOF’s services in Spanish! We now provide services in Spanish for processor and handler operations. Check out CCOF’s Handler Organic System Plan (OSP) in Spanish, available at www.ccof.org/documents. In addition, see our re-vamped Spanish language resources page, www.ccof.org/espanol, to access a wide variety of forms, flyers, and other helpful documents in Spanish.

Many CCOF operations submit add acreage information to CCOF immediately prior to harvest or during inspection. It’s never too early to add organically farmed land to your certification. Submitting new acreage early, for instance as soon as you start managing the parcel or plant a crop, can significantly reduce your costs and give you piece of mind.

One of the key challenges for organic farmers and processors is ensuring that your practices comply with NOP requirements. CCOF understands this difficulty, and has developed support resources to help your operation at every step of the certification process. From developing your Organic System Plan to maintaining your recordkeeping systems, the CCOF Certification Support Resources page can offer you the help you need! We even have a great additional resources section that can guide you to the outside help your operation may need.

As of July 1, 2014 organic processed products certified in the United States or Korea can now be exported and labeled as organic in either country. CCOF is excited that this agreement came before the end of the Korean standard’s education period, meaning there was no significant stop in trade between the two countries. CCOF commends the National Organic Program (NOP) for its diligent work in finalizing this agreement in such a short period of time, and with few critical variances.

Did you know that all certified CCOF operations remain certified until their certification is formally withdrawn, suspended, or revoked? Did you know that you can have a new copy of your certificate — effectively a federal license — at any time? It’s true. You are certified and you can have a new certificate at any time. During the recent membership survey it came to our attention that waiting for new certificates is a challenge and creates unnecessary stress for some operations.

Did you know CCOF’s own farmers’ market best practices guidelines are a great resource for addressing labeling, signage, and other practices at farmers’ markets? Feel free to use it as a reference and share it with market managers, the public, and others.

The CCOF materials revolution continued in January 2014 with a bold new offering free for all CCOF-certified members.

In the last six months CCOF has been in an ongoing dialogue with the National Organic Program (NOP) and USDA about issues we see in the certification and accreditation process that are overly reliant on paperwork and unnecessarily drive up costs. We are concerned that small operators may be leaving the NOP due to both the difficult paperwork and costs of organic certification.