One Size Fits all or Tailor-Made? Building Appropriate Certification
Systems for Geographical Indications in Southeast Asia
Figure 5: GI control system of the Lao PDR
Source: Authors’ survey.
standards for Good Agricultural Prac-
tices issued by the Ministry of Agricul-
ture. The LCB is under the auspices of
the Standard and Accreditation Divi-
sion of the Department of Agriculture
within the Ministry of Agriculture. It
currently employs 12 permanent staff.
The inspectors at LCB were trained
by inspectors from the Department of
Agriculture, Agriculture Certification
Thailand (ACT), and the Thai Organic
Trader Association (TOTA). Around
20 organic inspections of organic farms
are currently conducted throughout the
country each year. As there are no in-
spectors at the provincial and district
levels, the inspectors cannot monitor
the producer groups under their re-
sponsibility very closely. Operational
ICSs have been developed for organic
rice and vegetables (Vientiane Capital),
the future GI Bolaven coffee (Cham-
passak Province), and the future GI
Khao Khai Noi (Xiengkhouang and
Huaphanh provinces). Farmers are
usually inspected once a year. The in-
spection process lasts between 2/3 days
and a week, depending on the number
of farmers to be inspected in a group.
Inspection of paperwork is usually fol-
lowed by field inspections. Total certi-
fication costs depend on the size of the
area to be inspected and certified and
on the number of farmers involved, and
may vary from 100,000 to 1,000,000
LAK (US$13-125). Organic Agricul-
ture Certification Thailand (ACT) is the
main certification body that performs
inspections and certifies that products
comply with foreign organic standards.
For products for export, ACT current-
ly invites LCB inspectors to take part
in the inspection process to gain expe-
rience. However, the final certification
process is carried out by ACT alone.
Other foreign certification bodies op-
erating in the Lao PDR include: BCS
(Germany), ICEA (Italy), and Bioagri-
cert (Italy), all of which operate from
Thailand.
Table 1 summarizes and com-
pares the GI systems in the four coun-
tries, underlining the difference be-
tween the approaches.
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