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Exercise No. 03
Objective: To study about the National Programme for Organic
Production (NPOP)
National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP)
Introduction
The National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP) provides
Standards for organic production, systems, criteria and procedure for
accreditation of Certification Bodies, the National (India Organic) Logo and
the regulations governing its use. The standards and procedures have been
formulated in harmony with other International Standards regulating import
and export of organic products. The National Programme for Organic
Production (NPOP) also provides an institutional mechanism for the
implementation of National Standards for Organic Production (NSOP).
Objectives
a) To provide the means of evaluation of certification programme for
organic agriculture and products (including wild harvest, aquaculture,
livestock products) as per the approved criteria.
b) To accredit certification programmes of Certification Bodies seeking
accreditation under NPOP.
c) To facilitate certification of organic products in conformity with the
NSOP.
d) To facilitate certification of organic products in conformity with the
importing countries organic standards as per equivalence agreement
between the two countries or as per importing country requirements.
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e) To encourage the development of organic farming and organic
processing.
Scope
The NPOP shall, inter alia, include the following:
(a) Policies for development and certification of organic products as notified
by the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry,
Government of India from time to time
(b) National standards for organic products and processes.
(c) Accreditation of certification programmes to be operated by
Certification Bodies.
(d) Certification of organic products.
The Department of Commerce under Ministry of Commerce and Industry,
Government of India is the Apex body of the NPOP. The National Steering
Committee (NSC) under Department of Commerce is responsible for the
implementation and administration of NPOP including framing of
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standards, Accreditation policy, procedures and regulations for use of the
Certification Trade Mark “India Organic Logo”.
NAB - National Accreditation Body (NAB) is responsible for accreditation,
evaluation and implementation of accreditation programme for certification
bodies.
APEDA - Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development
Authority (APEDA) act as the Secretariat for both the NSC and NAB.
APEDA also coordinates the functioning of Technical Committees and
Evaluation Committees and ensures implementation of decisions of NSC
and NAB. Besides these APEDA is also the controller of TRACENET, the
traceability platform of NPOP.
Tracenet – Tracenet is an on-line traceability platform to maintain entire
data base and chain of custody of NPOP and ensures implementation of
entire certification programme in a time bound manner with back
traceability linkages for all the consignments released for trading.
