ECOA Organic Produce Certification - المركز المصري للزراعة العضوية

The Egyptian Center of Organic Agriculture; ECOA; is a certification bodyin the field of organic agriculture and GLOBALG.A.P. compliance; inside as well as outside Egypt.

ECOA has been established in July 1998 as a limited-liability company according to the Egyptian law 95 for the year 1992, aiming to support the development of the organic agriculture movement in Egypt.

ECOA is an independent legal entity and is not a part of any larger organization.  The foundation of the company was indicated in the "Companies Gazette" published by the Ministry of Economy in Egypt.

ECOA  incompasses a group of highly qualified and recognized specialists in the fields of organic agriculture as well as GLOBALG.A.P. production, inspection, and certification.

http://www.ecoa.com.eg

ISO 9000 is a family of standards for quality management systems. ISO 9000 is maintained by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. The rules are updated, the time and changes in the requirements for quality, motivate change. Recently, on November 15, 2008, has made changes to the requirements of ISO 9001.

Some of the requirements in ISO 9001 (which is one of the standards in the ISO 9000 family) include

• a set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business.

• monitoring processes to ensure they are effective;

• keeping adequate records;

• checking output for defects, with appropriate and corrective action where necessary;

• regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness; and

• facilitating continual improvement

A company or organization that has been independently audited and certified to be in conformance with ISO 9001 may publicly state that it is "ISO 9001 certified" or "ISO 9001 registered". Certification to an ISO 9001 standard does not guarantee any quality of end products and services; rather, it certifies that formalized business processes are being applied.

ISO 14001 is a standard for environmental management systems to be implemented in any business, regardless of size, location or income. The aim of the standard is to reduce the environmental footprint of a business and to decrease the pollution and waste a business produces. The most recent version of ISO 14001 was released in 2004 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which has representation from committees all over the world. The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment. In structure it is similar to ISO 9000 quality management and both can be implemented side by side.

In order for an organisation to be awarded an ISO 14001 certificate they must be externally audited by an audit body that has been accredited by an accreditation body. In the UK, this is UKAS. Certification auditors need to be accredited by the International Registrar of Certification Auditors. The certification body has to be accredited by the Registrar Accreditation Board in the USA, or the National Accreditation Board in Ireland.