Established on February 23, 2018, Reliable Organic Certification Organisation (ROCO) operates in compliance with National Standards for Organic Production and has received accreditation from APEDA. With its effective and affordable Certification services, ROCO is dedicated to protecting Mother Nature. in an exclusive interview with The Organic Magazine, Nagaraja L B, president, ROCO shared some valuable insights on the Organic industry.
What is the organic certification process like in India?
For consumers, we must provide wholesome food. It’s really significant, however in many cases farmers frequently choose not to obtain certification. Their customers don’t need the certification because they believe in the farmer, and if a farmer does decide to get certified, it’s only for exports. However, in the majority of cases, since farmers have their own customers and a good relationship with them, there seems no need for certification. It only occurs occasionally.
According to NPOP standards, we will inspect only 5 – 10 farmers and then issue you a certificate; however, the certificate we are issuing is for the entire group. In the case of a government organisation, they would have about 500 farmers, and we would hardly inspect more than 42 or 45 of them. We must take precautions and incorporate the knowledge to prevent contamination even in some export shipments. Because we will certify the entire group and grant transaction certification based on the test reports and inspection findings, these problems are very difficult to overcome.
Then, after five months or after a year, it will be sent to another body for testing, where some contaminants may be found. We had to spend a lot of money and manpower on this study at that time. All of these are quite challenging to handle. Since we are not issuing any export transaction certificate, we are in a slightly different position than other certification bodies in this regard.
