ISEAL Alliance

Consultation: Global Organic Market Access Project

The Steering Committee of the Global Organic Market Access project of FAO, IFOAM and UNCTAD invites comments on the first draft of  a new instrument for assessing equivalence of organic standards and technical regulations based on common objectives of organic standards.   

This instrument is intended as a revised Annex 2 of the Guide to Assessing Equivalence of Organic Standards and Technical Regulations (EquiTool), produced in 2008 by the International Task Force on Harmonization and Equivalence in Organic Agriculture (ITF).  The ITF was initiated by FAO, IFOAM and UNCTAD in 2002 and developed analysis, recommendations and tools to reduce barriers to organic trade that arise from many different standards and technical regulations worldwide.  Working together in a follow up project, Global Organic Market Access (GOMA), the partner organizations are promoting the practical implementation of the ITF tools and recommendations. 

We are providing the draft Annex 2 (rev) in both Word and PDF formats.  We also include a Guideline for commenting, and hope that you will be able to address the questions that we offered for your consideration. 

Please send your comments to me (d [dot] bowen [at] ifoam [dot] org) by 30 November, 2010.