Oct 8, 2020
NOP offers free classes: Recordkeeping, certification, system plans

The USDA’s National Organic Program recently launched three new courses in the Organic Integrity Learning Center.

For no charge, growers can study recordkeeping or the creation of organic system plans and review the essentials of organic certification.

The USDA described the courses in a recent newsletter:

Recordkeeping
Recordkeeping by certified operations and certifiers is a key requirement of organic certification. This course introduces certifiers and inspectors to a variety of recordkeeping systems encountered across the range of certified operations. It also examines challenges created by different operational activities and complexity levels. Finally, this course helps certifiers structure internal and collaborative recordkeeping reviews across operations.

Organic System Plans
The Organic System Plan (OSP) is a document that serves as the basis for communication between an organic business, the certifier and the inspector. It is the foundation of the organic certification process. This course teaches requirements related to OSPs in the USDA organic regulations, examines the different functions of the OSP, discusses critical organic control points, and provides OSP evaluation and design considerations for certifiers.

Certification Review Essentials
This course is for organic certification reviewers and describes how effective reviews of the Organic System Plan (OSP) and inspection report support organic compliance. This course guides certification reviewers through OSP requirements and critical control points, OSP assessment, inspection report review, and applying skills using case scenarios. This course helps reviewers gain confidence in completing effective and efficient reviews that lead to appropriate and defensible certification decisions.

Previously-created courses include “Organic Fraud and the Criminal Mind,” and “Traceability Techniques.”

Registering by creating an account is required to access the courses.

Once logged into the Organic Integrity Learning Center, signing up for a course is like buying a product at an online store, but all training is free, the USDA said in its newsletter. Detailed sign-up instructions, with screenshots, are available online.

Photo: USDA


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