US-based organic businesses wanting to prevent and fight fraud in their operations now have a full arsenal of fire power at their disposal: the Organic Trade Association’s groundbreaking Organic Fraud Prevention Solutions program and, now, with the help of the trade association, a complete fraud-fighting training package from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The Organic Trade Association (OTA) this week commended USDA for the launch of its newest online organic fraud-fighting course, and said that USDA’s training courses are a solid step forward in efforts to fight fraud in the organic supply chain and a big boost for the association’s fraud prevention program.
“USDA has put together a 5-star training package for the organic sector which dovetails perfectly with our own fraud prevention program. We are thrilled with the outcome of our collaboration with them,” said Laura Batcha, CEO and executive director of the OTA. “Organic businesses that enroll in our Organic Fraud Prevention Solutions and also take advantage of USDA’s excellent courses will be well situated to prevent organic fraud in their operations.”
USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) on Monday announced the availability of its Preventing the Organic Fraud Opportunity course. The launch of this latest course follows the unveiling earlier this year of USDA’s online course Organic Fraud and the Criminal Mind. Both courses are offered free through USDA’s Organic Integrity Learning Center, and are designed for organic inspectors and certifiers to complement the Organic Trade Association’s fraud-fighting program and to educate them in their evaluation of an Organic Fraud Prevention Plan.
“The fraud prevention courses are a tremendous addition to the Learning Center, and we are grateful for the collaboration with the Organic Trade Association and University of Michigan,” said Jennifer Tucker, deputy administrator for the National Organic Program. “Reducing fraud is an important part of building industry and consumer confidence in USDA organic products. When everyone works together to prevent fraud, we strengthen the organic system.”
Photo by Steffen Lemmerzahl on Unsplash
