Organic marks you may see in Thailand

Several different marks can appear on organic food in Thailand, and they are not all the same kind of thing. Some show that a certification body inspected the farm. One system relies on farmers inspecting one another. Others come from the rules of another country or region. The useful question for each mark is who stands behind it and which rules it follows.

Marks linked to the Thai standard

The Thai organic standard is TAS 9000. Two marks are tied to it.

Organic Thailand. A Thai university certification institute explains this as a mark for organic production inputs, production sources or products certified by the Department of Agriculture, the Rice Department, the Department of Livestock Development or the Department of Fisheries. These are government bodies acting as certification bodies, and the mark is specific to them.

Q Organic. The National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (ACFS) issues the Q mark. According to the same source, for organic products it goes to certification bodies that meet the international standard ISO/IEC 17065, apart from bodies with legal duties, such as government departments. The source says the two marks do not differ in the standard behind them.

Participatory guarantee systems

A participatory guarantee system, or PGS, is certification done by a community rather than by an outside body. IFOAM describes it as certification built on the active involvement of stakeholders, trust, social networks and the exchange of knowledge.

Thai central criteria for PGS describe four groups taking part: the group of organic producers, local supporters, consumers or businesses, and an organising body. Farm assessors are mainly fellow organic farmers who have been trained. Every farm is assessed on an agreed cycle of at least once a year, depending on risk and the production cycle. The certification decision is taken at a group meeting, and the organising body keeps the register of certified members and manages how the seal is used.

IFOAM is not a farm certifier

IFOAM is an international federation of organic movements. It does not certify farms. It sets a global framework for approving organic standards and runs an accreditation programme, which checks the certification bodies that do the certifying. A certification body that passes may use the IFOAM Accreditation Seal. So that seal says something about the certifier, not that IFOAM inspected a particular farm. IFOAM also runs a recognition programme for PGS initiatives.

USDA Organic and the EU organic leaf

These two marks follow the rules of other places, not Thai rules.

USDA Organic belongs to the United States. Its rules are in 7 CFR part 205. The seal may be used only on products labelled "100 percent organic" or "organic", which means at least 95 percent organic ingredients, not counting water and salt. It is not used on "made with organic" products. The certifying agent's name appears on the pack. Certified operations are inspected on site every year, and each certifying agent must make unannounced inspections of at least 5 percent of the operations it certifies.

The EU organic leaf, made of twelve white stars on green, belongs to the European Union. The European Commission says it is mandatory on pre-packaged organic food produced in the EU, with at least 95 percent organic ingredients. It must be shown with the code of the control body, and with where the farm ingredients came from. Operators are checked at least once a year.

In short

Organic Thailand and Q Organic are Thai marks tied to TAS 9000, but they are issued in different ways.
A PGS is certification by a community of farmers and supporters, with peer inspection and a group decision.
IFOAM sets norms and accredits certification bodies. It does not certify farms.
USDA Organic and the EU leaf follow the rules of the United States and the European Union.