Organic Agriculture Certification: is non-third Party Organic Product Certification feasible? Development Prospect of Organic Agriculture

In China, there has always been no non-third-party organic verification of organic agriculture, while South Korea has, then non-third-party organic verification of organic agriculture is feasible? Deconstructing the success of Hansalim cooperatives in Korea. Let's take a look.

In South Korea, there are ways to encourage farmers to engage in organic agriculture, including PGS (participatory Security system) and Hansalim Hansarin Cooperative (hereinafter referred to as Hansalim). Among them, I have known the cooperative farmers of Hansalim for many years, they are very honest, the farming method is very organic, sometimes more organic than the organic verified by the third party. Some Hansalim agricultural products are not organically certified, but South Korean consumers equate Hansalim with organically certified agricultural products. In fact, the food regulations of Hansalim are the most stringent in South Korea. Cooperatives only buy products with moral and honest farmers, and every farmer who joins the cooperative has to be evaluated by the cooperative.

Some female members are very smart, such as housewives. Farmers often say that housewives are the most terrible human beings. when these housewives find something wrong, they will take the initiative to inform these farmers, for example, when farmers only attach importance to production. On the contrary, housewives will tell them that they should also consider aspects such as the ecological environment. Since the relationship between farmers and housewives does not involve third-party verification, they call this "self-verification" to ensure that food is safe, but it is not officially listed as a certified organic product in South Korea.

In the past, we only focused on verification and wanted to establish a farmer-friendly verification method, and this is the problem of organic agriculture 2.0. We found that if there were too many restrictions, small farmers would be excluded, resulting in many farmers' agricultural products being unable to become organic products because of verification restrictions, but around the world, the proportion of small farmers was as high as 70%. Small farmers are very important and we want to include them.

Whether it is organic verification or PGS, it is one of the verification tools, focusing on the mentality of governments and people in various countries, and how to use these tools to develop organic agriculture is the key. Compared with organic verification, PGS can not only support the growth of organic farmers, but also support the growth of organic farmers. Therefore, if we want to establish a PGS system, not only consumers but also farmers should participate in order to make the development of organic agriculture broader.