- John – farmer and organic certifier and our facilitator – Thanks John!!
- Kevin – from Litefarm
- Ned – how certification can be made more efficient to support environmental outcomes, Different ways to do certification – getting community involved
- Kyler – interested in certification of equipment
- Deo – data management. Certification of carbon credits, how it works for carbon
- Rohan – interest in certification for proving environmental claims
John – objectives:
- Where Agtools can go? Can they help with certification?
- Organic industry certification – can FarmOS increased efficiency in certification, download your farm plan which helps
- Ground truthing issues – collecting data on compliance
- Fair trade and justice issues – aren’t included in the organic certification process
- How do you verify a certain situation?
Rohan
- To understand how we can conduct MVR
Kevin
- FMS that enables data to flow into certification – are we doing it right?
- Your perceptions of being a verification officer?
- We can show current actions
- Would a timeline – that tracks produce from seed to sale – would a visualisation work
- LiteFarm – less rigorous but easier to use
- Quantitative data and qualitative data – eg. What is your strategy for reducing water
Ned
- What are the frictions between farmers and undertaking certification
- Interested in understanding if and how monitoring processes are happening?
Deo
- Unintended consequences of a regime 0 African Growth Opportunity Act – no taxes but need certification – so didn’t work as no farmer knew how to get certification
- Must be certified USDA organic
Three types of certification
- Individual gets certification from an auditor
- Participatory guidance programs – (PGS) are peer-to-peer certification, good for local markets, lower costs and …driven by community concern – a homogenous group – agree on principles – almost like a micro-finance coop – can be as strict as they want – International Federation of International Organic Movements
- Group certification – internal control certification – organic certification for a coop – eg. Coffee or cocoa – they collectively hire for the entire group = they spot test in order to get a representative sample (random or at-risk)
What tools are available to help with certification?
- There is the Certifier is the third party – they hire the inspector – paid per farm – education is variable (eg. Would have to show my certification with International Inspectors Association to do work with PASA)
- Time spent on a farm varies by produce – livestock versus crops versus processing – different scopes for each certification
What is the generic process?
- On-farm inspector employed by Certifier
- Scopes / standards are defined
- Intensity of process
- Data collection process – walking through the fields – with questions – then in the office where you are verifiying against the plan (that they sent you weeks ago)
- Photography, mapping, invoices for sales, farm log, farm plan (standard operating procedure on each field)
- Organic goes back 3 years, Carbon has a baseline
- Hierarchy of actions – that can define acceptable actions
- Plan won’t be the actual outcome but need to explain the difference
- Scientific basis for certification – peer reviewed academic + 15% being withheld for data collection
- “We are not the police – we are your partners” – they will connect you with the services that can help without triggering conflicts
In the carbon markets and ecosystem markets
- Measurement and planning is subject to methodology
Summary
John – opensource has a primary role for third party verification – allows farmers to access resources to achieve their goals. But we are in an exploratory phase.