The demand for organic food products is continuously increasing due to the growing interest in markets such as the European Union (EU), the US, the Middle East, Japan, and China. Among the producing countries, Sri Lanka maintains a reputation as a reliable producer and supplier of organic agricultural products, adhering to international organic standards such as EU Organic, USDA, and JAS. However, even though our farmers/processors follow organic agricultural and processing practices, the products will not be marketed as “organic” unless it is verified and certified by a third-party-accredited certification body.
As such, with the objective of empowering small farmer groups to cater to these overseas markets, the Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) implemented an assistance scheme to assist these individuals to acquire organic certification from internationally accredited certification bodies.
The selected farmer groups were provided support to acquire organic certifications for a maximum of two organic standards and renew it for a period of two consecutive years, enabling them to establish a stable business. The project has facilitated five farmer groups including a total of 254 farmers to certify 130 ha of land as organic. During the project implementation, an awareness workshop was held to educate the farmer community on the process to be followed in establishing an internal control system (ICS) and maintaining documents, among others, which are mandatory activities of the certification process.
Moreover, the farmer groups were linked with accredited organic certification bodies such as Control Union Inspection (Pvt.) Ltd. and Mayacert (Pvt.) Ltd. operating in Sri Lanka, enabling them to proceed with the certification. The EDB was financially supported by the SME development programme of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Sri Lanka to make this scheme a success.
Currently in Sri Lanka, organic certification is done by private sector certification bodies accredited and recognised internationally. Most of our farmers are reluctant to convert their farms from conventional to organic due to the high cost of certification. Therefore, SME farmers and farmer groups tend to join organic exporters willing to invest in getting them certified as “organic”. In such a situation, organic certification is owned by the exporter and farmers are not in a position to access the direct market or supply their products to other exporters/traders. Hence, the independent decision-making ability of Sri Lankan organic farmers/processors is poor, as they have to depend on the exporter/trader to market their products.
Therefore, empowering local farmer groups by assisting them to obtain organic certification will facilitate the Sri Lankan agro industry to move into organic agriculture in line with the global trends and also to obtain high value for their products.
EDB assists farmer groups to obtain organic certification
17 Nov 2021
EDB assists farmer groups to obtain organic certification
17 Nov 2021
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