After 39 years of being organically certified the Curtis family decided to relinquish their states due to ongoing cost concerns.
Robin and Kay Curtis, The Oaks, Kooroongarra have produced accredited organic grain and cattle since 1976, but withdrew from Australian Certified Organics after continually paying costs associated with export organic markets despite not producing organic products that are exported every year.
“We had a concern as a smaller family run business that we were paying export certification fees each year and not using them,” Mr Curtis said.
“We were paying over $3000-a-year for export certification and not using them.”
In a statement, Australian Certified Organic said they offer certification to both a national standard called Australian Export Standard and Australian Certified Organic Standard (ACOS), a private standard.
The certification to the national standard entitles producers to export Australian organics, while certification to the ACOS gives access into some export and domestic market and the recognised ‘bud’ organics logo.
“Under our standard program, producers get access to export market as well as recognition in the domestic market with the Australian Certified Organic “bud” logo for one fee,” Australian Certified Organics general manger Sachin Ayachit said.
“Although some grain or cattle producers may not need certification to the export standard, a processed product made from these sources may be exported.”
Mr Curtis believes a model similar to Switzerland with government organic regulation and a single certified organic marketing symbol backed by all the organic certifying bodies would be a best practice model. He added making domestic and export organic certification standards the same would potentially reduce costs with only those needing export certification paying the fee, but still providing domestic inputs that meet organic export standards.
Australian Certified Organics Ms Ayachit said key industry stakeholders are collaborating to decide what national symbol should be used to make the recognition and purchase of certified organic products easier for consumers.
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