Twenty-nine inspectors and certification agency staff participated in an advanced organic inspector training on Fraud Prevention and Detection in San Antonio, Texas, USA on February the 2nd. The training was jointly developed and delivered by IOIA and the Alliance for Organic Integrity, plus selected experts. The event was held in conjunction with the IOIA Annual Meeting (Feb 3), the annual conference of the Accredited Certifiers Association (Jan 31-Feb 1), and the annual certifier training by the USDA National Organic Program (Jan 30).
The training was kicked off by Ken Commins via Zoom with Organic Fraud & Ways to Detect It. Commins first spoke to the IOIA on the topic of fraud detection in 2010. As a founder and past Executive Director of IOAS, Commins shared his observations as an accreditor and recommended anti-fraud strategies to certifiers and government agencies. These best practices remain valid today. Best practices discussed included tracebacks, mass balances, cross checks, yield potential to sales on farms, and supply chain audits. “The purpose of these audit tools is to uncover fraud in the supply chain”. He encouraged inspectors to not enter premises expecting to find fraud, but that we should also not believe that we cannot find fraud on a routine inspection. Robust mass balance exercises can both deter fraud and detect it. As an accreditor, he frequently saw mass balances performed inadequately.
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