The Technical Secretariat of the Inter-American Commission for Organic Agriculture (ICOA), managed by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), will make a proposal to strengthen the National Control System (CNS) of the Dominican Republic's organic production, based on the results of an assessment carried out in this country between October 8 and 11.
In those days, the Towards the Strengthening of the National Control System of the Dominican Republic's Organic Production workshop, organized by the Ministry of Agriculture with support from the IICA Office in this country, the CIAO and the International Regional Organization for Animal Health (OIRSA), took place in Santo Domingo.
The EPF tool: Assessment and Planning for Strengthening the CNS of organic production, developed by CIAO and IICA, was applied at the workshop.
This tool allows assessing the CNS by analyzing the components that determine the optimal system on issues such as legislation, compliance of organic production, the availability of human and financial resources, tracking, auditing, monitoring and controlling of organic trade (imports, exports, retail), among others.
The strengthening proposal prepared by the Technical Secretariat of the ICOA will be implemented via official agencies and various stakeholders of the CNS. It will be presented for consideration to the national authorities in November.
Officials of the Dominican Institute for Quality (INDOCAL), the Department of Organic Agriculture (DAO) of the Bureau of Organic Agriculture (OCAO), producers, processors and marketers of organic products, and certification agencies, among others, attended the workshop. Facilitators of the Technical Secretariat of the ICOA led the meeting.
The Dominican Republic was the fifth country of the CIAO where the EPF tool has been applied. Prior to the Dominican Republic the tool had been applied in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, where the proposals for strengthening the CNS of organic production were developed.
According to the OCAO, the authority that controls organic production in the Dominican Republic, the country had 166,200 certified organic acres, 23,443 producers, 22 processor operators and 68 operators registered dealers in the period between March 2011 and March 2012. The main certified products were coffee, cocoa and bananas.
Source: agriculture