Certification

Why Certify?

The last few decades have seen the growth of increased consumer awareness and concern for both environmental and social causes. This has been catalyzed by the globalization of [Page 69]information through revolutionary changes in media technology, in which a person in rural Kansas can quickly and easily gain information about deforestation in the Amazon or indigenous protests in Guatemala, for example, simply by opening an Internet browser. This access to information leaves an uneasy dilemma in which the virtual witness is left with limited options to respond and interact with the events that unfold on their screen. The most obvious is to use the tool that is most readily available: purchase power. The consumer can vote with his or her money, a solution that also serves the dual purpose of further raising awareness of the role that things, be they commodities or finished goods, have in linking us to places that are otherwise inaccessible to us in the day-to-day.

But how do consumers know how to vote with their money? One way is through certifications. Early certification initiatives focused on ensuring food safety and quality and product standardization. These included certification systems developed by the International Standardization Organization (ISO), an international network of state- and non-state-standardization agencies. More recently, however, the governance of the value chain is shifting from quality-oriented standards imposed by public institutions to process-oriented standards that are part of third-party voluntary management systems. Thus, the Codex Alimentarius standards utilized by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to govern food health and safety are also accompanied by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Organic Standards that transform organic agriculture into a legal designation, as well as third-party certifications like Fair Trade that govern social relations, environmental practices, and trade processes in the value chain.

The growth of the number and prevalence of certifications in commodities is indicative of a wider demand in the global agrifood system for product traceability to ensure product safety; however, this growth is not limited to the agrifood industry. Product traceability has become an important impetus for environmental sustainability issues, such as forest stewardship and energy conservation.

Traceability is a set of collection, documentation, and application of information practices that guarantee the origin and life history of a product to the consumer; certification is the verification of traceability. Many different kinds of information about products can be transmitted—information about time, place, material linkages with other products or components, and people involved with the product at different points of production or processing, as well as quality indicators. The goal of any traceability certification system depends on the wider political context in which the product or business practice itself moves. A basic traceability system will be implemented within a company to achieve simple goals such as supply-side management, quality control, and basic safety or hygiene (in the case of agrifood). Much of the recent development in traceability systems has focused on the environmental impacts of doing business from product inception to completion as well as from day-to-day operations.

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