Revised under Order Nung-Liang-Tze 0991051447 dated March 3, 2010
Revised under Order Nung-Liang-Tze 1011052588 dated March 5, 2012
1. These Operating Guidelines are duly enacted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Executive Yuan (hereinafter referred to as MOA, or Ministry of Agriculture) in accordance with Articles 4 and 5 of Regulations Governing Agricultural Product Certification Bodies for implementation of the accreditation operation over Organic Agricultural Product Certification Bodies.
2. The accreditation conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture on organic agricultural product certification bodies shall be classified into the following scope in accordance with the contents of the certification conducted by the certification bodies:
- Organic agricultural food products,
- Organic agricultural processed products.
- Organic livestock products.
- Organic livestock processed products.
- Organic aquatic products.
- Organic aquatic processed products.
3. An institution, school, juristic (corporate) person or entity who applies for being accredited into an organic agricultural product certification body, or a certification body who applies for extended assessment or for reassessment (hereinafter collectively referred to as Applicants) shall, before going any further, apply to a specific assessment body which has satisfactorily passed the review by the Ministry of Agriculture and shall satisfactorily pass the initial assessment, extended assessment and reassessment of conformity assessment for organic agricultural product certification bodies before filing application to the Ministry of Agriculture.
An applicant shall, while filing the aforementioned application to the Ministry of Agriculture, fill out the accreditation application for organic agricultural product certification body (Cf. Appendix 1) and shall submit the Admissibility notice issued by the specific assessment body.
4. An applicant for being accredited as a specific assessment body shall file the application to the Ministry of Agriculture along with the following supporting documents for review. The Ministry of Agriculture will advise the applicant of the result of review in writing:
- Multi Lateral Arrangement mutual recognition for product certification of International Accreditation Forum.
- Documents regarding handling of conformity assessment operation of the organic agricultural products certification bodies:
- Quality manual.
- Assessment standards.
- Accreditation procedures, surveillance procedures, extended assessment procedures and reassessment procedures.
- Rough calculation of costs and rates for charges.
- Regulations regarding screening/selection, training, performance rating, dispatch and assessment s of assessors and experts.
- Conformity Commitment of the Specific Assessment Body (Cf. Appendix 2).
5. The Ministry of Agriculture reviews based on the following conditions and requires continual compliance of the specific assessment bodies:
- Assessment based on compliance—The accreditation bodies provide General Requirements for Accreditation Bodies Accrediting Conformity Assessment Bodies (ISO/IEC 17011), and set up the system of conformity assessment of certification bodies to put them into implementation accordingly.
- Participate in international accreditation forums. The Ministry of Agriculture has duly executed the Multi Lateral Arrangement mutual recognition for the accreditation fields of product certification bodies.
- Render conformity assessment services for organic agricultural product certification bodies. The assessment criteria are the same as norm for Accreditation of Organic Agricultural Product Certification Bodies.
- The procedures documents set forth in Paragraph 2, Subparagraph 3 of the preceding Article shall be consistent with the contents of Article 5, Paragraph 1 of Regulations Governing Management over Agricultural Products Certification Bodies.
- Organic agricultural product certification bodies shall submit implement performance reports of the rendered conformity assessment services to MOA on a set period annually.
- Coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture in supervision over the audit under Subparagraph 5 of the preceding paragraph.
The initial assessment, extended assessment or reassessment of the certification body conformity assessment conducted by specific assessment body shall submit an assessment decision report and copies of relevant issuance and replacement of the accreditation certificate within three days after assessment decision made to MOA.
The MOA shall have the name list of the specific assessment bodies disclosed onto the MOA website.
6. MOA shall, after receipt of application from an organic agricultural product certification body for accreditation, extended assessment or reassessment procedures, inform the certification body of the acceptance in writing after confirming the completion of application form and enclosed documents. MOA will conduct document review over the compliance with the accreditation guide for an organic agricultural product certification body after receipt of the submitted documents under preceding article third paragraph from specific assessment body:
- That the applicant has received no penalty of being annulled or abolished under Article 10, Paragraph 2; Article 21, Paragraph 2; Article 23, Paragraph 2 of the Agricultural Product Production and Certification Management Act within three years prior to the date of application.
- That the organizational operation of the organic agricultural product certification body and capability of the competence of its personnel should live up to the General Requirements for Bodies Operating Product Certification Systems (ISO/IEC Guide 65), the Ministry of Agriculture’s specific requirements of the personnel of the organic agricultural product certification body and testing laboratories, (CF. Appendix 3), Agricultural Product Production and Certification Management Act and laws and ordinances concerned, laws and ordinances, administrative rules and promulgations promulgated by other administrative authorities.
7. The applicants shall satisfactorily pass accreditation, extended assessment or reassessment and may receive issuance or replacement of the accreditation certificates (Cf. Appendix 4) in accordance with Article 7, Paragraph 1; Article 8, Paragraph 3 and Article 9, Paragraph 2 of the Regulations Governing Agricultural Products Certification Bodies if the review results prove that the applications are consistent with the accreditation guide of organic agricultural product certification bodies.
8. To check and verify that the organic agricultural product certification bodies are continually consistent with the accreditation guide in the validity period of the accreditation certificates, the Ministry of Agriculture may conduct the surveillance by assigning personnel to conduct documented verification, headquarters audit or witness audit. For certification bodies, whose part or entire qualification of conformity assessment was annulled, shall be regarded as its part or entire ability of certification operation in scope of accreditation a demerit under norm of accreditation.
