It is obvious that local production should always have priority for the consumer of organic produce. Anyway, to ensure diversity of produce and sufficient possibilities for processing as well as the development of organic markets including a wide choice for consumers, some products and ingredients need to be imported while others may be exported. While some organic products can be produced locally in sufficient quantity and quality and therefore should be purchased from the local farmer, other products can be produced for climatic restrictions only in certain countries but are required in others, such as coffee or spices.

All steps of production and processing have to be covered through Certification and Inspection, maybe by different accredited certification bodies, but following the same standards and ensure the same quality and certification results. Beside the control on the farming level, the processing industries as well as export and import companies for organic produce have to be covered by inspection and certification as well. The control of separation and commodity flow aims to guarantee that only those quantities enter the organic market, which are produced organic according to the regulations.

Before a producer, processing or export company makes a decision to choose a certification body three important issues should be considered, which are COMPETENCY. MARKET ACCEPTANCE and COSTS.

Regarding competency the Certification Body has to be accredited and registered for Inspection and certification of farms, processing industries and export facilities in accordance to the target markets (EU. US, Japan, Switzerland…). In addition to abiding by the legal guidelines. license agreements of-l the utilization of a trade-mark within Growers Associations of Organic Agriculture can also be obtained when offering organic products. To ensure best market access to all potential markets, an internationally recognized body should be able to supervise and assess the contract conditions, standards and license fees for Associations and other holders of trademarks and seals in the respective target markets, such as Demeter, Bioland, Naturland, Soil Association, Bio Suisse and should have the respective agreements with those associations. It helps to save costs to combine the Inspection for the Association with the inspection for the legally binding certification following the legislative regulations. The association’s standards are ADDITIONAL to the legal standards and can NOT be used instead. To ensure best service and market access, the best choice is a certification body with inter-national recognition, experience, and networking.