In my corn book, I talk to both conventional and organic farmers. The organic farmers spoke of inspectors coming regularly to the farms–so when I saw this post on the type of training the inspectors get, I thought it would be something people would find interesting. I know I did.
Over the years I have met several Organic Inspectors, a few of whom have suggested I pursue a similar career.
Source – organic.org
To do this, I had to go to Des Miones, Iowa. There I took IOIA’s (International Organic Inspectors Association) training for Crop inspection. From what I gathered in advance, the class would be educational bootcamp, which was fine by me.
Day 1.
The first day was spent in covering the relevant standards in the NOP (National Organic Program) – a task that involved a lot of page flipping and highlighting. The NOP standards are the rules of the game. It’s what tells farmers what they need to do and Inspectors what to look for.
It was easier than this image may lead you to believe. Source – http://heartbreakhypnotist.com/
It covers topics ranging from the kind of seeds you can use and under what conditions, to biodiversity on…
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Midwest Maize 