Learning Opportunities in the US
Accredited Certifiers Association (ACA) and International Organic Inspectors Association (IOOA), both organisations from the US, often organise training courses and workshops for their members and other stakeholders.
ACA has a department specifically dedicated to providing training on organic certification, the ACAdemy. In the ACA website, the coming training sessions taking place this autumn and announced, they are face-to-face sessions, one in Holyoke, MA and another one in Portland, OR.
Issues covered by these sessions include verifying compliance with the organic regulations, risk-based approach and to inform on compliance verification procedures. New risk-based certification tools and consider how they can improve the work of inspectors, reviewers, and certification overall.
For more info see: https://www.accreditedcertifiers.org/academy/academy-live-events/
IOIA, on its part, announces different courses and webinars, among them, the Live Online Basic Organic Inspection training courses, for IOIA members and non-members. It is four days and a half course and it is recommended for inspector trainees, certification agency staff, regulatory agency staff, farmers, quality control personnel, consultants, and technical service providers who want to better understand the organic inspection and certification process.
Participants are required to complete the appropriate 100-level NOP Standards (crop, processing or livestock) prerequisite webinar training (6 hours) before taking a Live Online Basic course.
For more info see: https://www.ioia.net/infopage/