Administrative Order No. 7 Series of 2011 amending the Guidelines in the Accreditation of Certifying Bodies for Standards on Organic Agriculture.

This Administrative Order amends the Guidelines in the Accreditation of Certifying Bodies for Standards on Organic Agriculture. Amendments deal with the following issues. Criteria for Accreditation for the Operating Manual of Certification Procedures shall ensure: a) Compliance of its certified operations with the existing standards and record keeping requirements; b) Adherence to procedures in evaluating applicants, making certification decisions, issuing certification certificates, and maintaining the confidentiality of any business information submitted by the certified operation; c) Conduct of necessary procedures to monitor the certified operations; d) No conflict of interest. All persons involved in the certification procedure have declared existing or potential conflicts of interest; e) Making information available to the public about the certified operations. must have at least one satellite office or processing unit each in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao in case of only one accredited certifying body in the country; they must not be providing consultancy services to certification applicants to overcome identified barriers to certification.