3 Oct 2017

Impressions from the AntiFraud Initiative Conference in Odessa

Taking responsibility instead of pointing fingers: fraud prevention should be a collaborative approach based on data-sharing along the supply chain rather than something expected from regulatory bodies.

Odessa Conference - Improving Integrity of Organic Supply Chains
End of September 2017, Gerald A. Herrmann and Annette Sutter from Organic Services attended the international conference 'Improving Integrity of Organic Supply Chains', organized by the AntiFraud Initiative in collaboration with IFOAM and EOCC .
The organizers must be applauded to have put together an interesting conference. While topics were similar and a number of speakers the same as at two earlier AFI events in Frankfurt and Kyiv, participation from the US appreciated this conference. Shaken up by the Turkish fraud, with conventional products originating from Eastern European countries, representatives from the Organic Trade Association (OTA), from certifiers and from USDA NOP were outspoken on the necessary improvements on audits and supply chain integrity (see paragraphs on ACA, OTA and NOP 4031 above). Other than at the Frankfurt event, the European Commission representatives were outspoken about necessary improvements (not only in the countries of origin) but at EU itself, e.g. through TRACES eCoI, the introduction of ‘compliance’ instead of ‘equivalence’ that will be introduced with the revised EU Organic Regulation, and through an enhanced enforcement and oversight.
We were specifically impressed about how clear EU Commission representatives pointed to the responsibility of trade and the sector at large when saying: you have to fight fraud yourself, it is your responsibility, the organic regulation is the framework provided to do your homework. Unfortunately, this clear statement to which we fully subscribe to was left un-answered by trade and companies present, and the organizers failed to take this up. Responsibility for integrity taken by retail, trade and manufacturers was the other cornerstone (next to certifiers data exchange along the supply chain, see above) that made the FederBio Integrity Platform in Italy a reality. Without the monitoring of transactions and a reference to the acreage across the supply chain there will be no integrity!
Miles McEvoy, at that time acting Deputy Administrator of the National Organic Program (NOP) pointed out how important it is to start from field level with information on acreage, products and quantities produced. This statement was reinforced by Jake Lewin, President of CCOF Certification Services, one of the leading US certifiers and matches the position of the ACAs. We couldn’t agree more! It was unfortunate again that this fundamental issue was not seriously considered during the moderated discussion and in the Conference Declaration.
The impressions we took back home from the conference and the numerous talks we held with participants focus on two aspects that are crucial for transparency and integrity in organic supply chains:

  • Importance of capturing acreage data to control plausibility of traded volumes
  • Providing and sharing key data along the supply chain is essential