MCIA Organic Services Manager Michelle Menken provides a spring update:
We have mailed or emailed the 2022 crop renewal applications. They are due back March 15 for produce growers and April 1 for everyone else. If you did not receive your application, please contact the office. We have sent payment reminder letters to those who have not yet paid for 2021. We will be issuing Noncompliance Notices if we do not receive payments.
If you do not plan to certify in 2022, please contact the office. The regulations require you to “surrender” your certificate. This means notifying us that you do not plan to certify and paying MCIA any final fees due on the sales of 2021 or earlier crops.
Unless you are transferring from another certifier or are adding greenhouse plants, we do not expect to do any scheduled inspections until May. Of course, we may do some unannounced inspections. These are usually shorter and limited in scope. The regulations require us to conduct unannounced inspections and collect samples from at least five percent of our clients each year. We do these randomly.
Last year, we lost a couple of our inspectors during the inspection season. So, we had to scramble to get everyone inspected. We have been connecting with some new inspectors for 2022. Please try to keep your inspection date once it is scheduled. Inspectors do not always confirm an inspection after scheduling it. If you have concerns about your inspection, please contact your inspector or the MCIA office.
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We were at the MOSES Organic Conference in February and the NPSAS Conference in January. It was good to see people in person after the last two years! Let’s all hope for a peaceful and prosperous year.