Agricultural Commodity Export Promotion Program (ACEPP) under the Department of Agriculture will soon call upon the agro-product certifying agencies to apply for the accreditation. [break]
The ´Guidelines for Accreditation of Organic Agro-products Certifying Agencies 2013´ was passed by the Ministry of Agriculture in February, and ACEPP has now geared up to implement the guidelines by accrediting the certifying agencies, Kripa Dhakal, an agriculture economist at ACEPP, told this daily.
ACEPP will shortly publish a 30-day notice in the national daily, calling them to apply for the accreditation, Dhakal added.
There are about half a dozen agencies, including an international one, which certify organic products in the country. "The government´s subsidy for the certification cost of th eorganic products for export will only be provided to the products certified by the accredited certifying agencies," Dhakal further said.
The government officials say that the provision for accreditation will help to regulate the certifying agencies as well as to monitor any adulteration in the certified organic products.
"We are also hopeful that we will encourage farmers and exporters to get the subsidy allocated for certifying the organic products for export via accredited certifying agencies," he added.
Over half the budget earmarked for the subsidy were frozen for the last three consecutive years. The guidelines has provisioned National Organic Agriculture Accreditation Body, ten-member panel led by the Executive Director of Nepal Agricultural Research Council, to give final accreditation to the certifying agencies following a supervision of the office of certifying agencies and its certifying activities.
Thereafter, inspection officials will be deployed to inspect the quality of certifying tasks and such inspection will be carried out at least once a year for such agencies, according to the guidelines.
There is also a provision of annulment of the accreditation upon non-compliance of the guidelines.
The certifying agencies has to follow the due process of standard of the production and processing of the organic product specified in a separate guideline of 2008, and submit an annual report to the accreditation body within the three months after the end of each fiscal year.
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