News, analysis and insight on global organic certification, standards and regulations.

At the NOP training workshop held in New Mexico on January 21, 2026, Jennifer Tucker, Deputy Administrator of the National Organic Program discussed her ‘hopes and fears’ regarding the future of the organic sector in the USA and beyond.

She was pleased and optimistic on the positive impact of the Strengthening Organic Enforcement (SOE) rule which has been in place now for two years. Close collaboration with the certification community has resulted in detection and prevention of fraudulent shipments into the US. This collaboration has been crucial in implementing controls that enhance important value chains. However, she commented that it is important to emphasize that while there is significant focus on import oversight, we should also be alert to potential fraud occurring domestically within the US.

One of the key priorities for the future is improving data quality. While the framework underpinning organic integrity is in place, it requires continuous enhancement, and the loss of personnel last year did have impact.

Although resources are now included in the recent ‘big beautiful bill’, the previous year was challenging, necessitating a year-by-year planning approach.

The NOP is committed to its ‘sound and sensible’ mantra by adopting successful risk-based strategies, in order to streamline certification processes. However, the NOP are considering specific rules to determine which operators can be audited under this approach.

At the international level Jenny Tucker also noted that a new equivalency agreement is in process with New Zealand (see main article), and an expansion of the agreement with Japan to include alcoholic beverages took effect in October 2025. Furthermore, the EU is considering a 10-year extension for the equivalent agreement with them, recognizing the lengthy duration required for such processes (see report in TOS 203).

The National Administration of Certification and Accreditation of China (CNCA) has officially published the new version of the Implementation Rules for Organic Product Certification. These regulations strengthen the requirements for organic certification bodies and personnel, all certification processes, as well as post-certification supervision and management. The new version of the standards introduces various measures to improve production and market control.

Overseas producers and exporters seeking to market products as ‘organic’ in China are generally subject to the same procedural and technical requirements as domestic producers; and exceptions apply only where China has established specific international arrangements or mutual recognition mechanisms, under which alternative certification pathways may be permitted.

At present, China has reached one mutual recognition arrangement: Under the China–New Zealand cooperation framework, eligible New Zealand certified organic products may follow the terms of the bilateral memorandum

rather than undergo full domestic recertification. Besides New Zealand, China and Australia have signed a Letter of Intent on Cooperation in Organic Product Certification, but this document has not yet been converted into a formal mutual recognition arrangement.

Therefore, for imports from all other countries and regions except New Zealand, organic certification must follow China’s organic certification system and the 2025 rules before any organic claims can be made.

TOS last covered developments in China in TOS 199.

Sources: Food Compliance International and China Briefing

Under the motto ‘Growing Tomorrow: Young Voices, Bold Visions,’ BIOFACH took place in Nuremberg from February 10 to 13, 2026, as a meeting place for the international organic industry and movement.

BIOFACH is the most important platform for professionals. It offers opportunities to tap into new markets, strengthen one's own market presence, and discover the latest trends and innovations in organic food and natural cosmetics. Congress events provide the opportunity to discuss all topics relevant for organic industry and movement. Around 35,000 trade visitors and more than 2,200 exhibitors from all over the world gathered in Nuremberg.

In her impressive opening speech, Luisa Neubauer from ‘Fridays for Future’ explained how the illusion of a world like Potemkin villages (fake facades) is constructed. Driven in particular by the internet, it is essentially economically motivated and politically pushed by reactionary forces. A world that serves to distract us from reality or, worse still, to keep us away from it. She calls for a greater sense of reality. To understand the biosphere—oceans, soil, trees, animals—as our home and to protect the fragility of our planet. She calls on us to tear down the masks and look at what is real, at what is essential. To save planet Earth for us as humans.

A wonderful introduction to BIOFACH. It sets the standard, the vision for what ‘organic’ wants to be – or rather, must be. The laboratory for fair, sustainable nutrition for people, for a sustainable agricultural and food industry.

And that is particularly important for the organic movement, where doubts about its direction fill the exhibition halls and the congress.

For example, is it about organic farming agroforestry, agroecology, permaculture, or even regenerative agriculture?

There is uncertainty among many players, for example in the Global South. Or consider the question of establishing alternative ‘fair’ trade structures, which have failed in many countries. Today's market is dominated by food trade oligopolies. They determine prices and set the agenda for farmers and artisans increasingly also in the market for organic products. In many countries, the perceived political tailwind for the organic movement has slowed significantly in recent years. These doubts are also palpable at BIOFACH 2026. With the big questions – Where are we headed? Or even – What is our mission?

This makes it all the more gratifying to take Luisa Neubauer's call as an impetus to gain guidance for realigning the goals of the organic movement. To make obvious necessities the central focus of our efforts. And it is right to entrust the ‘Young Voices' with shaping the future. The pioneer generation is too defensive of old images and concepts and is no longer courageous and visionary. Personally, I am excited to see what paths the next generation in the organic movement will hatch, also as a result of the discussions at BIOFACH 2026, in order to fulfil the task of saving planet Earth for humanity.

This years Congress at Biofach in Nuremberg included a session: Rewarding Ecosystem Services, Can Nature Credits work for Organic? Moderated by Hanna Winkler, IFOAM Policy Associate Manager.

Sabine von Wirén-Lehr of Wirén-Lehr Consulting started the session with a brief outline that a Nature Credit is a unit of nature-positive outcomes that is science based and tradeable by the use of private investment. There is a further aim to integrate biodiversity into corporate strategies, and although at an official level Nature Credits will be part of the United Nations system to create an accountable market for nature there have already been some private initiatives. International financial and insurance businesses have taken the issue of nature degradation seriously since over 50% rely on natural resources for their business.

According to the EU ‘Roadmap towards Nature Credits’ the aim is that by ‘facilitating investments in activities that benefit nature’ they should ‘play a crucial additional role in preserving the health of our land and marine ecosystems and help reverse the decline in biodiversity’.

Dr von Wirén-Lehr noted that Nature Credits are not Carbon Credits as they address different issues. The EU are looking for a stringent system of certification to create a Nature Credit value chain, there is a risk that some land-owners will have the false hope that quick money can be made. An expert group has been established to advise on the establishment of an effective system, panel members Sarah Oberländer, Hanna Winkler, and Julien Pezet are members of the expert group.

Sarah Oberländer, Research Associate at FiBL, considered what is possible regarding science-based Nature Credits (e.g. biodiversity measurements). She noted that measuring biodiversity is difficult, for examplea basic approach is farm level species counting but such approaches are time consuming and resource intensive. An alternative approach would be to use indicators such as number of plant species and/or farm practices that benefit biodiversity over time. So different farm practices could receive a number of points in the system. Comparable farm practices across the EU are currently being considered in order to create a points-based system.

Clément Mongabure of La Féderation Nationale d’Agriculture Biologique felt that there should still be basic requirements for Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments as is currently the case, with any Nature Credit payments being an additional benefit for nature friendly practices.

Julien Pezet of Ecocert noted that a concern is that the system should be easy to certify, whilst Hanna Winkler hoped that it should be easy to recognise the benefits of already certified organic farms. In response Dr von Wirén-Lehr noted that the aim is to provide financing for major projects in line with the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, farmers and land managers are at the heart of that law. The organic sector is used to a certification system, has good farmer associations, and most organic farmers have good systems thinking so the sector is well placed to take advantage of the Nature Credit system.

However, there has to be additionality/added value, so organic farmers will need to show this on top of what is already paid for by the CAP.

Sarah Oberländer noted that to get the metrics right it is difficult to see that organic will always have a definite advantage, the nature value has to be increased for the specific project.

Clément Mongabure felt that some common indicators could be found to achieve Nature Credits for organic farms due to the nature advantages provided by parts of the system that are not otherwise compensated. Julien Pezet said that if the existing system of organic certification is recognised as suitable for awarding Nature Credits then additional criteria can be introduced.

Sabine von Wirén-Lehr believes that organic farms should be included in the pilot because what can be said positively for organic production and for the Nature Credit system should be regulated. Definitions will help to prevent greenwashing. Verification will need to consider the quality and duration of measures taken.

Sarah Oberländer raised concern over the use of Carbon Credits often supporting only companies’ own value chains, she believes regional boundaries will be needed to address this. Clément Mongabure put forward that as organic operations are a systemic approach, projects should be regional.

A question was put as to whether a True Cost Accounting approach could be used to provide a price structure. Sarah Oberländer felt a catalogue of measures could be used and that regional tweaks could facilitate addressing the balance between scientific accuracy and practicality.

A question was also put as to what areas are covered as well as biodiversity. The main areas were water quality and flood prevention, support for pollinators was also considered to improve nature value. Clément Mongabure noted that water quality is already producing some support for organic farmers from Les Agences de L’eau.

In summary, the feelings of the panel seemed to be that organic farmers can look to the Nature Credit system with cautious optimism. They will be well placed to take advantage of the possibilities that projects can offer due to being used to adopting a holistic approach to their farming system, but cannot assume that organic status itself will automatically provide financial support outside of that already available.

Gerald Hermann of Organic Services GmbH noted that one of the difficulties in addressing the control of organic supply chains is that data sits in silos that are not visible to those elsewhere in the chain. The idea of having a data hub that enables supply chain review was proposed (which preserves business anonymity of operators above and below those dealt with immediately in trade).

Jan Wicher Krol of Skal Bicontrole in his role as chair of IFOAM-OE IGOC (Interest Group on Organic Certification and Integrity) noted that enabling automatic data collection could reduce inspection questioning. Data availability is a major issue to consider, and collaboration could usefully be introduced as part of horizontal legislation. Gerald Hermann noted that taxonomy is a challenge; standardisation of Geographic Information System (GIS) inputs prior to ingestion will be needed for example, in order to enable mass balances and GIS based yield analysis in any system.

Christian Fink MD of inspection body ÖkoP Zertifizierungs GmbH noted that data integration has enabled direct input to their database from forms created during inspection, but that there is still a lack of end-to-end data logic across stakeholders. Data silos create multiple reporting obligations where official data could be used.

A pilot study has been undertaken using data access granted by operators to enable checking of organic plots/fields on a map. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules in Europe mean that data is still the property of the farmer.

The Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) for the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) holds the largest set of geodata, but these are held nationally and under GDPR rules. If this could be utilised, then growers’ data could be ingested easily. This would have to be undertaken with the grower’s permission.

If successfully implemented, then the GIS map would automatically be amended to show up-to-date information

(in fact there would need to be a data capture at end/start of CAP year to ensure correct data is held for payment claims). A successful outcome might result in 20-25% administration time saving for farmers and certification bodies, the farmer should effectively only need to upload the shapefile data.

The system is currently not commercialised; it is still being worked on as a research project. But ingestion of data is not the problem now, it is the practical issues of gaining momentum within industry. At a later small technical session Gerard Hermann explained how the system could incorporate non-European data, including information held on the US OID database and open source map applications for ingesting data, or drawing boundaries where geographic data is not otherwise held; and that transformation/internal consumption issues along with general mass balance can be addressed by inputting yield data to create mass balance codes in the system. He also showed that an operator, control body/authority, or competent authority can utilise the data to assess the certification of suppliers and customers without data on suppliers and customers further up or down stream than one level being visible (other than a traffic light system to show certification status).

In summary, this is an interesting project, which shows the possibility of efficiency savings, and involves industry leading partners with expertise in the area. Its eventual commercialisation will rely on a number of factors, not least the agreement of a large enough number of operators and certifiers to be involved in order to provide sufficient data.

The Alliance for Organic Integrity has a work stream called the Organic Observatory which is tasked with identifying potential fraud cases, studying and learning from these to have better inspection and certification, thereby avoiding recurrence in the future. It should also report on past cases that tend to be forgotten. We recently heard about a new case in which we recognised the same symptoms of a similar case years ago.

We do not learn when there is nothing published. Who remembers the UA Sunflower cake, the Puss in Boots, the Indian sesame, the US soy? At Biofach Nuremberg we heard conclusive results from 3-4 Official Investigations after detection of prohibited substances. Good information. But when the information is not shared it is an opportunity missed to improve the impact of organic certification, of a proper investigation.

For that reason, the Organic Observatory is launching a series describing past but likely still relevant cases.

Not only what was found, what the causes may have been but also the critical organic control points that should have been better dealt with. These are symptoms that indicate that there may be trouble ahead and what should be in place to avoid recurrence. We’re thinking of topics like grains in China, vegetables in the EU and US, wheat from Eastern Europe, cotton in India, synthetic fertilisers in ginger, and so on. We invite readers to come forward with cases that deserve analysis.

The articles should go through a due diligence process, i.e. asking response from involved parties, the CBs, inspectors, scientists. The articles are not a naming and shaming exercise; information will be anonymised. Product and country will be mentioned but not much more.

We want to start with an analysis of a case of bread wheat detected in Germany with the grain coming from a relatively nearby East European country. As it was found out, it was moved across the Black Sea through a complicated, at least not so clear, supply chain pictured below.

Organic still dominates Sustainability Standards: In their 10th global report on sustainability standards, ITC highlights that organic still dominates the agriculture sustainability sector. Organic certified land areas (99m ha in 2023) still dwarf all other schemes (11 in total) combined, the next leading standard being Rainforest Alliance at 5.3m ha.

Organic Cotton Summit 2026: Organic Cotton Accelerator and Textile Exchange have announced that their Organic Cotton Summit is taking place from June 2–4, 2026 in Istanbul, with optional field trips in İzmir, Türkiye. The first 2 days are dedicated to farmers, brands, manufacturers, and policymakers exploring pathways toward a more resilient, sustainable, and scalable organic cotton sector.