Posted on February 22, 2012
Many of the over 100 participants from more than 40 countries at the GOMA Conference, “Let the Good Products Flow!”, expressed their enthusiasm for the conference contents and hope that the work on harmonization and equivalence in organic agriculture will…
Posted on August 25, 2011
USDA National Organic Program recently published a report of its on-site assessment of four USDA-Accreditation certification bodies and meeting with officials from the Certification and Accreditation Administration of China (CNCA) in November 2010. The favorable report described assessments of the…
Posted on June 15, 2011
The GOMA Project announces that it will hold a major international conference on February 13 and 14 at the Nuremberg Messe in Germany. Called “Let the Good Products Flow!” the conference will review how organic trade has been…
Posted on April 11, 2011
GOMA is requesting proposals for a study which focuses on the potential use of trade agreements to achieve equivalence between/among systems for regulating organic agriculture and trade. Interested parties should read the Term of Reference, which is included in this…
Posted on April 7, 2011
Stakeholders from Asia are invited to comments on the first draft of the Asia Regional Organic Standard (AROS). The aim for AROS is to serve as a reference for establishing multi-lateral equivalence for organic standards in East, South-East and South…
Posted on March 16, 2011
A Drafting Group for the Asian Organic Standards (AROS) met in the Philippines on March 9-10 to develop the first draft of the document, which will be soon consulted in the Region (South, South-East and East Asia). Hosted by the…
Posted on February 24, 2011
Andre Leu showing how international organic markets will change The GOMA Steering Committee had a full agenda at BioFach from 16-19 February, conducting a consultation on the new Annex for EquiTool (now called “Common Objectives and Requirements for Organic…
Posted on February 1, 2011
GOMA is adding a new Annex to EquiTool, which facilitates equivalence assessments of organic standards and is based on objectives and corresponding basic requirements. After taking comments from the first draft of this Annex, we are now inviting comments on…
Posted on October 21, 2010
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…
Posted on September 24, 2010
The Chinese national authority for certification and accreditation (CNCA) has opened a comment period on a revision draft of the National Administrative Rules for Organic Product Certification. This includes revisions to Chapter Four, “Supervision and Administration of Importing Organic Products.” The…
Posted on September 14, 2010
The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) has released a second installment of funding for GOMA in the amount of 227,000 Euro. The second installment was authorized after a joint review of the project by Norad and GOMA concluded that…
Posted on August 9, 2010
The GOMA project will commission a study to support the development of recognition of organic certification requirements for Asia. This is part of the Asia Initiative to develop a common framework for cooperation on organic labeling and trade in East,…
Posted on August 5, 2010
GOMA invites qualified consultants to submit proposals for a comparative study of Asia organic standards, which will support the new work to develop a regional organic standard for Asia. Deadline for proposals is 22 August. To access the invitation and…
Posted on August 2, 2010
The GOMA website now links to the following documents: the Draft Central American Organic Standards (in Spanish), Announcement of the Comment Period from the five Central American Countries (in Spanish) and detailed process for completion of the Central American…
Posted on July 28, 2010
Competent authorities from the countries of Central America – Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua – have released the first draft of the Regional Organic Standard for Central America and the Domincan Repulbic, and have invited comments from…
Posted on July 19, 2010
Japan has been added to the EU list of third countries whose organic regulatory programs are deemed to be equivalent to the EU Organic Regulation. The declaration to amend the list was made in EC 471/2010, dated 31 May, 2010.…
Posted on July 8, 2010
The next issue of the GOMA Newsletter will be coming to this website next week. It will include • New Asia Network for harmonization, equivalence and cooperation • Revision of ISO Guide 65 and GOMA’s role in it • Australia’s…
Posted on June 11, 2010
Government and private sector participants from 12 countries in East, South-East and South Asia, meeting at a workshop in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, from 27-29 May 2010, have declared their intent to move forward on concrete measures to…
Posted on March 11, 2010
A main activity of GOMA is to address opportunities for harmonization and equivalence in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. With that in mind, we are both educating and consulting government and private sector stakeholders in the region through…
Posted on March 3, 2010
Last month at BioFach Nuremberg, GOMA Steering Committee member, Sophia Twarog, and I had the pleasure to chat with some members of the Organic Trade Association team that coordinated organic industry input to governments in Canada and the US last…
Posted on February 22, 2010
The GOMA project has been visible in both the East and the West this month. On 4-5 February, GOMA held an invited workshop in Nonthaburi, Thailand (a suburb of Bangkok). The workshop was piggybacked to an Organic Symposium sponsored by…
Posted on February 1, 2010
Congratulations to UNCTAD for matchmaking. Last December, UNCTAD convened a workshop in Geneva that brought together some key actors from the realms of GLOBALGAP and organic agriculture to discuss how to cooperate to pare down a mountain of certification requirements…
The AROS Drafting Group meets in Vientiane, Laos on 28 -29 June The Asia Regional Organic Standard (AROS) is…
The Canadian Government and European Commission have exchanged letters acknowledging that their organic regulations are considered equivalent. Unlike the Canada-US…
