USDA’s National Organic Program recently held a webinar updating the public on developments surrounding improvements to its Organic INTEGRITY Database.

• As our readership is well aware, organic production in the U.S. is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program (NOP) under the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (OFPA) (Public Law 101-624, Nov. 28, 1990).  To support the continued development of organic production in the U.S., the NOP recently rolled out the Organic INTEGRITY Database, funded by the 2014 Farm Bill.   The database, formally launched in September 2015, contains up-to-date information on certified organic farm or business around the country, and may be used to readily search for an operation with specific characteristics. For example, the site contains a classification system for categorizing products that carry USDA organic certification.

• On October 26, 2016, the NOP held a webinar updating the public about recent improvements to the Organic INTEGRITY Database.  An archive of NOP’s webinar is available here.  Major takeaways from the webinar included:

  • Certifiers can now log in to the database, and regularly update the list of organic operations they certify;

  • Certifiers can now track the history of an operation to support certification and compliance activities;

  • Industry and the public can now perform increasingly sophisticated advanced searches by operation status effective date, exact product name, and other criteria;

  • Certifiers can now avoid recertifying suspended operations that have not been reinstated by NOP; and

  • Certifiers can now produce and operations can verify federated organic certificates through INTEGRITY

• The NOP continues to engage industry and the public to make improvements to the Organic INETGRITY Database and, in particular, is working with organic certifiers to encourage regular data submittals and accurate data.