Organics Around the World

ACAMEX and OMRI Team Up for Mexico Training 

By Cesar Cartagena

The year 2021 proved an eventful year for the organic sector. Both the Mexican and Canadian organic regulations underwent several amendments in late 2020, the European Union adopted its updated organic regulations in January 2021, and the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) undertook 2021 and 2022 Sunset Review and Substance Renewals. As a result of all these changes, professionals in the organic sector have been digesting a large volume of new information. With this challenge in mind, ACAMEX (Asociación de Certificadoras Aprobadas en México; or the Association of Approved Certifiers in Mexico) held its second virtual training in Spanish for inspectors and staff from organic certification bodies. The training took place on November 17 and 18, 2021, facilitated by ACAMEX personnel from their Mexico City headquarters. Given OMRI’s expertise in input review under multiple ruling bodies, OMRI staff was invited to participate in the event. In addition, OMRI staff prepared and led a training tackling the intricacies of input review in organic production under LPO (the Mexican Organic Products Law), NOP and COR (the Canada Organic Regime). 

According to Lorenzo Nigo García, ACAMEX’s Executive Director, the main purpose of the event was “to create a space for interaction to keep ourselves updated, find solutions to daily challenges, unify criteria, develop relevant and coherent solutions that provide tools to the technical staff of organic certification bodies to improve their performance, and generate confidence in consumers, operators and institutions.” OMRI’s training tackled three important challenges facing the organic sector. The first was recent and upcoming updates to the organic regulations in the United States, Mexico, Canada and Europe. Next was the methodology and tools in key aspects of the organic certification process. And finally, the presentation covered information exchange between certification bodies. Leading OMRI’s presentation were Ana Negrete (International Program Manager), Tina Jensen Augustine (Senior Bilingual Technical Coordinator) and Aura del Angel Larson (Bilingual Technical Coordinator). Their focus was to simplify general aspects of input review under NOP, LPO and COR, as well as to highlight key differences between the three standards, by showing examples of the same input being reviewed under those three sets of criteria. In addition, a concise summary of the various amendments undergone by all three organic standards was presented at the close of the training, followed by a lively Q&A session. 

ACAMEX reported that there were 95 attendees from Guatemala, Bolivia, the United States, Canada, Spain, Ecuador and Mexico. The attendee list included organic inspectors, technical staff involved in the organic certification process, input evaluators, accreditation personnel, and other professionals in the organic sector including representatives from all 12 certification agencies recognized by SENASICA (the Mexican National Service of Health, Food Safety and Quality) to operate in Mexico. García pointed out that unlike the first virtual training hosted by ACAMEX, “On this occasion, we counted with the participation of several of the accredited agencies and relevant local authorities, with which the dialogue was strengthened as a result, in order to maintain, develop and improve trust in the organic certification framework in Mexico.” The panel format and Q&A sessions of most of the presentations allowed for an open discussion between the varied stakeholders, fostering insightful perspectives and shared experiences regarding fraud, traceability and changes to organic standards, among many other topics. 

“The objective of these trainings was met,” remarks García. “We worked on developing the bases to generate solid conformity assessment practices among the different stakeholders involved in the organic certification framework, not only under the rules and regulations of Mexico, but also under the NOP, EU and COR standards.”

This article first appeared in the winter 2022 issue of the OMRI Materials Review newsletter.