The role of participatory Guarantee Systems for Food security

Summary

The primary tool for assuring quality of organic products and preventing fraud, and also for promoting commerce, is third party organic certification, which aims to regulate and facilitate the sale of organic products to consumers. Certification plays a role along the entire supply chain and is used by organic producers to identify products that are approved for use in certified production (Fabiansson, 2014), while also serving as product assurance for consumers (Sethuraman and Naidu, 2008). Although third party certification systems play an important role in organic production and trade, they are not always suitable for small-scale operators and local market channels. Third party certification can act as a barrier to entry for smallholder producers looking to access organic markets because of the high costs involved (Lundberg and Moberg, 2009), the paperwork and bureaucracy required (IFAD, 2003) and complex norms (Nelson, 2015). To address these challenges, some farmers have sought alternative certification systems that are better adapted to specific local contexts. One such alternative for conformity assessment is to use participatory guarantee systems (PGS), which rely on the participation of multiple stakeholders to guarantee the organic integrity of products.