THE FIVE-yearly review of the UK Register of Organic Food Standards has made five recommendations which would see the scaling down of the non-departmental public body.

The recommendations made in the review report are open for industry consultation and comment until March 31.

Among the recommendations are that Ukrofs should cease to operate its own direct organic certification scheme and certification bodies should instead be accredited by the UK Accreditation Service. But the Soil Association, which certifies 70 per cent of organic produce in the UK is concerned that Ukas does not have the required specialist knowledge of the organics sector to do this effectively. 'Ukas is already very stretched and it might therefore not fulfil this role satisfactorily,' said a Soil Association spokeswoman. The association also expressed concern that the issue of a proliferation of certification bodies which has spiralled to 10, was not mentioned in the report.

The association would be making more detailed comment to Defra as part of its response to the report, she added.

A further recommendation calls for the administration of import authorisations and other functions be carried out by Defra officials rather than Ukrofs secretariat but with as much of the day to day work as possible being undertaken by the certifying bodies.

It is also recommended that a new advisory non-departmental public body develop and review UK standards and provide guidance to certifying bodies on their interpretation and encourage the convergence of individual certifying body standards.

This body would be made up of representatives from the certification bodies as well as consumer, retailer, farming and food processing industry representatives.

Reponses should be made to John Parkin at Defra: john.parkin@defra.gsi.gov.uk by March 31. l