Safer North American organic products

In a press release the German-based Gesellschaft für Ressourcenschutz (GfRS) (engl. Resource Protection Ltd) has announced that an IRM-Organic team is going to train Canadian and US-American organic inspectors in risk-oriented organic controls.

Given the dynamic growth of the organc market in Canada and the United States and the increasing complexity of  trading, organic inspectors are required to have a high level of knowledge and competence. To meet this need the first training course for organinc inspectors in North America is being launched in Ottawa. It is supported by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the International Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA).

GfRS, a certification and organic inspection organisation domiciled in Gottingen in Germany, has expressed its delight in the interest shown in its so-called blended-learning training concept. The original concept dreives from the EU IRM-ORGANIC project (more on the project at www.irm-organic.eu).

The course is fully booked with 40 participants from Canada and the USA. The focal points of the course were established together with  the participants in order to take account of the special challenges faced by the North American organic sector: risk-oriented preparation of organic inspections; identifying critical areas in organic production; sampling and analysis, and examining  whole international supply chains and the traceability of organic products.