The newly-created advisory board has been tasked with ensuring sound governance and management of the regional organic guarantee system, with the objective of facilitating increased access to various forms of organic certification to the Pacific Organic Standard (POS).
The POS was recently accepted into the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) Family of Standards.
29 May 2012: The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has announced that the Pacific Organic and Ethical Trade Community (POETCom) has established an advisory board, with the task of advancing POETCom’s vision of “Pacific organics – the key contributor to sustaining our cultures and improving farmer livelihoods, communities, people’s health and our environment.”
POETCom convened in French Polynesia, from 3-6 May 2012. The meeting was funded by the French Pacific Fund of the Government of French Polynesia, and the EU-funded Increasing Agricultural Commodities Trade (IACT) project, which is implemented by the SPC. SPC also serves as the secretariat for POETCom.
According to SPC, the advisory board is tasked with ensuring sound governance and management of the regional organic guarantee system, with the objective of facilitating increased access to various forms of organic certification to the Pacific Organic Standard (POS).
SPC also announced that on 14 April 2012, the POS was accepted by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) into their Family of Standards. Approval of the standard is based on an equivalence assessment against the Common Objectives and Requirements of Organic Standard, which draws the line between what can be considered organic production and what falls outside that realm. The POS assessment was conducted by the IFOAM Organic Guarantee System Department, reviewed by the IFOAM Standards Requirements Committee, and approved by the IFOAM World Board. [SPC Press Release (Organic Standard)] [SPC Press Release (POETCom Meeting)]