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IMO - Your Specialist in Sustainable Collection of Wild Products
IMO has been active in the field of quality assurance of wild production since many years. Numerous projects entrust IMO with their certification worldwide; e.g. in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in Albania, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Mongolia, Peru, Dominican Republic, Russia and Turkey. These projects offer a great variety of crops from the food sector to the sector of personal health care and medicinal herb.
Our staff is well qualified and highly experienced in certification of wild collection.
Our certificates stand for the greatest ecological quality and are well known in all markets. As a responsible certifier IMO provides more than just control of compliance criteria: We offer a long-term partnership aiming to improve sustainability and therefore profitability in the long run.
Our staff is well qualified and highly experienced in certification of wild collection.
Our certificates stand for the greatest ecological quality and are well known in all markets. As a responsible certifier IMO provides more than just control of compliance criteria: We offer a long-term partnership aiming to improve sustainability and therefore profitability in the long run.
IMO Certification Schemes for Wild Collection
The organic regulations of the major markets (European, US and Japanese) are all equally vague about the requirements of organic wild collection, and how to ensure sustainability. This results in different handling procedures and requirements through different certifiers, the effect of this is a very inhomogeneous quality of certification. Especially the requirements regarding sustainability and traceability are handled very inhomogeneous by different certifying bodies. This and the fact that the organic regulations foresee only the certification of wild collected plants for food purposes forced IMO to diversify their offered certification schemes.
During the last years we have elaborated a new standard which focuses on sustainability of the wild collection procedure, the International Standard on Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic plants (ISSC-MAP). It is intended to become the most important standard for wild harvesting worldwide.
A second standard has been elaborated in order to meet the needs of those wild collection companies who want to comply with Fair Trade. This is called FairWild.
During the last years we have elaborated a new standard which focuses on sustainability of the wild collection procedure, the International Standard on Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic plants (ISSC-MAP). It is intended to become the most important standard for wild harvesting worldwide.
A second standard has been elaborated in order to meet the needs of those wild collection companies who want to comply with Fair Trade. This is called FairWild.
| Overview Wild Collection Standards | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Organic Wild Collection |
ISSC MAP |
FairWild |
|
| General applicability | Certification of all unmanaged, sustainable wild collected plants or plant parts for human consumption | Certification of managed and/or unmanaged sustainable wild collected plants or plant parts | Certification of Wild Collection Companies wishing to add high social performance and Fairtrade aspects to their endeavours towards sustainability |
| Collected goods | Applicable for edible plants or plant parts; animal and aquatic species are excluded, as well as honey. | Applicable for all plants or plant parts issued from wild collection, regardless of their end use; animal and aquatic species are excluded, as well as honey. | Applicable for all plants or plant parts issued from wild collection, regardless of their end use; animal and aquatic species are excluded, as well as honey. |
| Certificate entitles marketing of products according to an organic regulation, e.g. Reg.(EU) Nr. 2092/91, NOP, JAS | Yes | Not automatically, but certification can be easily achieved. However, management activities like enrichment planting of wild harvested goods will change the project character towards an extensive organic farm | Additional requirement, “organic wild collection” or “ISSC-MAP” should be obtained at least after the first year of FairWild certification |
| Sustainability of wild collection activities | Core sustainability requirements like maps, collectors training, and description of collected plants | Core sustainability requirements of “organic wild collection”, additionally establishment of company specific management plan and monitoring. Collection quantities need to be based on resource assessments. | Compliance with core sustainable collection principles. Organic or ISSC-MAP certification must normally be obtained within one year. |
| Management of wild collected plants or collection areas | The collected plants must grow and regenerate naturally without any agricultural measures. | Management practices are allowed, but do not negatively affect other sensitive species or the ecosystem in the collection area. | Not applicable. |
| Respecting customary rights | No | Customary rights to use and manage collection areas and wild collected resources are recognized and respected. | Customary rights to use and manage collection areas and wild collected resources are recognized and respected. |
| Social accountability | No | Implementation of adequate work-related health, safety, and financial compensation for collectors and other workers | Monitoring of fair relations at all levels, in equivalence to FairTrade (FLO) and International Labour (ILO) Standards |
| Marketing/Labels | Marketing as “organic” | ISSC MAP label is still under development. | FairWild certified products can be marketed as FairWild and/or Fairtrade, and according to Organic Wild Collection or ISSC-MAP. |
Activities and services of IMO concerning wild collection
- Inspection and certification of
- organic wild collection
- ISSC-MAP: sustainable wild collection
- FairWild: socially & ecologically sustainable wild collection
- Independent monitoring and checks
- Training of collectors and producers
- Documentation of origin
- Creation and provisioning of guidelines
- Online system for complete in-house traceability
Contact
If you have any further questions or wish to take advantage of the services of IMO, feel free to contact Heiko Schindler (hs@imo.ch).
We will be pleased to answer all your questions in detail!
We will be pleased to answer all your questions in detail!
