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Who we are
The IOAS is a
non-profit organisation which was established in 1997 by the International
Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), itself a
charitable organisation dedicated to promoting organic agriculture
internationally since 1972.
The sole aim
of the IOAS is the continued growth of the organic market by providing a
transparent and respected system of assessment against nationally and
internationally- agreed standards. The
organisation is headquartered in North Dakota, USA but also has offices in
Australia, Spain and the United Kingdom. The
day-to-day work (including all assessment visits) is performed by 6 staff
in 4 countries: Amaia Aldana, Ken Commins, David Crucefix, Jan Deane,
Stephanie Goldfinch and Angela Jackson. Overall
responsibility is exercised by a 7-8 member Board
elected to represent a balance of interests and geography with current
members coming from Costa Rica, Germany, Netherlands, Thailand, United
Kingdom and the USA. A similarly balanced, 7-8 person Accreditation
Committee is responsible for accreditation decisions and currently has
representation from Canada, Chile, Germany, Italy, Peru, Quebec, Switzerland
and Thailand. The
IOAS is self-financed, 80% of which comes from the accreditation service.
The remainder is income from training and technical projects, all related to
organic standards and development of better regulatory systems in this
field. We
work all over the world providing services related to conformity assessment
in organic agriculture; accreditation, equivalence
assessment, training and information.
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Last updated:
03/08/2007
IOAS stand at BioFach 2007 |
