National Organic Standards Board

Certification, Accreditation and Compliance Committee

Proposed Recommendation

Unannounced Inspections

September 14, 2011

Background

On June 23, 2011, the Deputy Administrator of the National Organic Program (NOP) 

issued a memorandum to the chair of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) 

requesting a proposal on best practices for unannounced inspection. The Certification, 

Accreditation and Compliance Committee (CACC) has reviewed this request and, in 

consultation with representatives from the organic community, developed this proposal. 

Currently, unannounced inspections are allowed, but not required, under the NOP 

regulations. Some Accredited Certification Agencies (ACA’s) conduct many 

unannounced inspections, often to fulfill international requirements, while others may 

conduct none. We believe that it would be appropriate for the NOP to issue guidance to 

ACA’s on this subject and respectfully submit our recommendations below. 

Relevant Regulatory Text

7 CFR § 205.403 On-site inspections.

(a) On-site inspections.

(1) A certifying agent must conduct an initial on-site inspection of each production 

unit, facility, and site that produces or handles organic products and that is 

included in an operation for which certification is requested. An on-site 

inspection shall be conducted annually thereafter for each certified operation 

that produces or handles organic products for the purpose of determining 

whether to approve the request for certification or whether the certification of 

the operation should continue.

(2)

(i) A certifying agent may conduct additional on-site inspections of 

applicants for certification and certified operations to determine 

compliance with the Act and the regulations in this part.

(ii) The Administrator or State organic program's governing State official 

may require that additional inspections be performed by the certifying 

agent for the purpose of determining compliance with the Act and the 

regulations in this part.

(iii) Additional inspections may be announced or unannounced at the 

discretion of the certifying agent or as required by the Administrator or 

State organic program's governing State official.
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(b) Scheduling.

(1) The initial on-site inspection must be conducted within a reasonable time 

following a determination that the applicant appears to comply or may be able 

to comply with the requirements of subpart C of this part: Except, That, the 

initial inspection may be delayed for up to 6 months to comply with the 

requirement that the inspection be conducted when the land, facilities, and 

activities that demonstrate compliance or capacity to comply can be observed.

(2) All on-site inspections must be conducted when an authorized representative 

of the operation who is knowledgeable about the operation is present and at a 

time when land, facilities, and activities that demonstrate the operation's 

compliance with or capability to comply with the applicable provisions of 

subpart C of this part can be observed, except that this requirement does not 

apply to unannounced on-site inspections.

(c) Verification of information. The on-site inspection of an operation must verify:

(1) The operation's compliance or capability to comply with the Act and the 

regulations in this part;

(2) That the information, including the organic production or handling system 

plan, provided in accordance with §§205.401, 205.406, and 205.200, 

accurately reflects the practices used or to be used by the applicant for 

certification or by the certified operation;

(3) That prohibited substances have not been and are not being applied to the 

operation through means which, at the discretion of the certifying agent, may 

include the collection and testing of soil; water; waste; seeds; plant tissue; and 

plant, animal, and processed products samples.

(d) Exit interview. The inspector must conduct an exit interview with an authorized 

representative of the operation who is knowledgeable about the inspected operation to 

confirm the accuracy and completeness of inspection observations and information 

gathered during the on-site inspection. The inspector must also address the need for 

any additional information as well as any issues of concern.

(e) Documents to the inspected operation.

(1) At the time of the inspection, the inspector shall provide the operation's 

authorized representative with a receipt for any samples taken by the 

inspector. There shall be no charge to the inspector for the samples taken.

(2) A copy of the on-site inspection report and any test results will be sent to the 

inspected operation by the certifying agent.

Discussion

The CACC believes that unannounced inspections are one of the most powerful and 

useful tools in the NOP regulations to ensure compliance across certified operations 

and give consumers additional reasons to trust the organic label. We believe that all 

ACA’s should be conducting unannounced inspections of a significant portion of their 

clients every year. 
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Unannounced inspections serve the dual purpose of giving the ACA the opportunity to 

observe the activities of a specific operation without the advance notice provided in the 

annual monitoring inspections, but also acts as a deterrent factor to other operations

who may consider acting in noncompliance with the NOP. ACA’s who already conduct 

significant unannounced inspections report that word of unannounced inspections tends 

to spread among groups of organic operations. A consistent approach to unannounced 

inspections is essential in order to ensure organic integrity, reinforce the public trust in 

the organic label and create an even playing field for certifiers and certified operations 

alike.

We strongly recommend that the NOP provide guidance that includes a specific 

percentage of operations which must have unannounced inspections every year. We 

are proposing a five percent requirement across the board for all ACA’s. This will 

ensure fair and equitable application of unannounced inspections by certifiers of all 

sizes and will not unfairly or impact small or large ACA’s. Because ACA’s have the 

option of charging certified operations for unannounced inspections (either on a per 

inspection basis or as part of their overall fee structure), we do not believe that requiring 

ACA’s to conduct unannounced inspections will have a negative financial impact on 

ACA’s. The proposal for five percent of operations per year is in line with IFOAM and 

COR. As these international organic standards already require unannounced 

inspections, a number of NOP ACA’s have experience in conducting these types of 

inspections and are already performing at least the 5% proposed. 

ACA’s may be disinclined to conduct unannounced inspections in remote geographic 

areas or areas where they do not have regular inspection services or inspectors. While 

we understand the financial and operational considerations, we believe that an ACA 

should and must be able to conduct an unannounced inspection in any area they offer 

certification services or they are failing to maintain adequate resources to effectively 

and equally apply this oversight. At this time, we are not proposing that the ACA be 

required to conduct annual unannounced inspections in each country, of each product 

type, or each certification scope. Such requirements could result in a single operation 

having an unannounced inspection every year, while the majority of a certifier’s 

operations would not receive an unannounced inspection in any year, which predictably 

leads to absurd outcomes. Instead, we recommend that ACA’s have a systematic plan 

for equitably distributing unannounced inspections across their clients to ensure a 

reasonable representation of certified operators.

We believe that ACA’s can appropriately use unannounced inspections either for 

targeted, risk based investigation purposes or simply randomly. We do not believe that 

ACA’s should be limited to performing either one type of unannounced inspection or the 

other, and will be able to determine the appropriate balance of the two types. We 
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recommend that ACA’s develop risk assessment systems to document the operations 

who they have determined to be most at risk for noncompliance, and therefore a higher 

priority for an unannounced inspection. While we have provided some elements of a risk 

assessment guide, we believe that this is not comprehensive, and that ACA’s will be 

able to use other criteria for determining whether an operation is a good candidate for 

an unannounced inspection. ACA’s are encouraged to share their risk assessment 

criteria among themselves to facilitate this process. 

Some ACA’s may use unannounced inspections in conjunction with sampling visits. 

Collecting samples during the course in order to fulfill the (currently draft) requirements 

for pesticide residue testing can be an efficient use of ACA and inspector resources. 

While we do not discourage this practice, we want to be clear that a sample collection 

alone is not sufficient to fulfill an unannounced inspection requirement. The inspector 

must also observe some aspects of an operation’s activities or fields, facilities or 

products. An unannounced inspection must include the creation of an inspection report 

by the inspector and review by the ACA, even though the inspection may be limited in 

scope. Especially if the operator’s representative was not present at the inspection, it is 

important that the ACA document the visit and the observations of the inspector and 

supply a copy of this report to the inspected operation. 

While operations are required by the NOP to make all documents relevant to 

certification available during normal business hours, in practice, many operations 

(particularly small farmers) may not be able to make all records available during an 

unannounced inspection. When an operation is able to make all records available, and 

the operator’s representative is able to spend the necessary time with the inspector, 

there is no reason why an unannounced inspection cannot fulfill the annual on-site 

monitoring requirements of NOP 205.403. If the ACA conducts unannounced 

inspections at their own expenses, as some do, it may even be preferred by the 

operation to have the unannounced inspection be a full annual inspection. While we 

think it is reasonable for inspectors to show up unannounced and require some time 

from the operation, we expect that ACA’s respect the business realities of the certified 

operations. Inspectors should not make unreasonable demands on their time, such as 

expecting an operation to stop all activity and spend an entire day with the inspector. 

Especially in cases where the unannounced inspection is being conducted randomly, as 

opposed to based on risk factors, or in the case of small businesses and sole 

proprietorships, unannounced inspections can be done relatively quickly and without too 

much interruption in daily activities. We discourage ACA’s, inspectors or certified 

operations from expecting all or most unannounced inspections from fulfilling the annual 

inspection requirements. 
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The issues of trespassing and property access can be controversial. ACA’s must 

provide specific, written guidance to their inspectors and their clients describing their 

policies on having inspectors access certified operations when a representative of the 

operation is not present. While laws may vary from state to state (and country to 

country), we strongly recommend that ACA’s instruct inspectors never to enter on to 

private land or roadways without permission. Even if an operation has signed a 

certification contract stating that they allow access at any time, we are concerned that 

inspectors could be in violation of trespassing laws if they do so. At many operations, 

there are observations that can be made by an inspector from public property, such as 

roadways and parking lots. 

At some operations, such as closed facilities or biosecure chicken houses, it may be 

absolutely essential that a representative be present to allow access to the facilities in 

order for an unannounced inspection to provide any kind of meaningful observation by 

the inspector. In these cases, we believe that it may be useful to provide some advance 

notice to the operation so that they can ensure a representative is present. ACA’s 

currently have a number of different approaches to pre-inspection notification. Some 

ACA’s may provide as long as 48 hours advance notice before an “unannounced” 

inspection. We believe that the latter is excessive notice and could allow a fraudulent 

operation sufficient time and warning to clean or obscure elements of their facilities, 

storage areas, ledgers, and so on. We suggest that a limit of no more than four hours 

pre-inspection notice provides reasonable time for an operation to make a 

representative available, while limiting the amount of pre-inspection preparation that can 

occur. We recognize that this is a somewhat arbitrary time limit, and we suggest 

feedback from ACA’s on this requirement. In any event, The ACA must include notice to 

applicants of their policies regarding notice and expectations for compliance.

Proposed Guidance 

1. ACA’s are required to conduct periodic unannounced inspections at minimum of 

five percent (5%) of their total certified operations per year. For calculation 

purposes, the number of operations will be counted as the number reported by 

the ACA to the NOP during the annual update each January. For ACA’s with 

less than 20 certified operations, they are required to conduct one (1) 

unannounced inspection each year. 

2. The ACA should strive to conduct unannounced inspections broadly across all 

certified operations, including a broad spectrum of production types, products 

and locations. ACA’s should not limit unannounced inspections to nearby 

operations or certain production types. ACA’s should have a long term plan for 

conducting unannounced inspections across their client base, including 

geographic location and certification scope. ACA’s shall not accept applications 
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for certification from locations where they are unable or unwilling to conduct 

unannounced inspections. 

3. ACA’s may choose operations for periodic unannounced inspections may be 

random, risk based, or the result of a complaint or investigation. The ACA is not 

required to disclose to the operation the reason for the unannounced inspection. 

a. Risk factors for conducting an unannounced inspection of an operation 

may include, but are not limited to:

i. Previous noncompliance issues

ii. Complaints

iii. Organic and non-organic production, especially of visually 

indistinguishable varieties

iv. Likelihood of drift or contamination potential

v. Product market value or prevalence

4. Unannounced inspections may fulfill the requirements for annual on-site 

monitoring inspections required by section 205.403 only if the inspector is able to 

conduct a full inspection of the operation as required by this section. 

Unannounced inspections may be limited in scope, depth and breadth, and may 

cover only certain aspects of the operation such as parcels, facilities, products, 

etc. ACA’s may direct the inspector to a portion of the operation to review during 

an unannounced inspection. 

5. An inspection report must be written by the inspector, sent to the client and 

reviewed by the ACA and a decision communicated to the clietnas per NOP 

205.403 and the ACA’s internal protocols. 

6. Inspectors may conduct sampling during an unannounced inspection. Such an 

inspection may count towards both the number of samples and towards the 

number of unannounced inspections an ACA is required to take annually. 

However, if a visit of the operation is to count as both an instance of sample 

collection and an unannounced inspection, the inspector must review some 

aspects of the operation besides simply collecting a sample. 

7. An unannounced inspection may occur even if no representative of the operation 

is present. 

a. Wherever possible, an unannounced inspection should include no prior 

notification of the operation to be inspected before the inspector arrives on 

site. In special cases or where extenuating circumstances make it 

impossible to conduct any type of observation of the operation without 

prior notification (such as biosecurity issues), the ACA may notify the 

operation up to four (4) hours prior to the inspector arriving on site to 

ensure that appropriate representatives are present. 

b. If a representative of the operation is not present, observations of the 

operation including, but not limited to, the following may be observed:

i. Condition of soil fertility

ii. Health of the plants

iii. Condition of soil and water
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iv. Erosion issues

v. Evidence of, or lack of, herbicide, fungicide or pesticide use

vi. Condition of facilities, including pest control and contamination risks

vii. Condition of pastures and indicators of grazing

8. ACA’s are responsible for providing adequate training to their inspectors to 

ensure that inspectors do not trespass or break any other laws during 

unannounced inspections. Inspectors should not enter private property without 

explicit permission of the operation. Inspectors must have adequate 

identification, such as a business card and/or explanatory letter from the ACA, to 

demonstrate that they are acting on behalf of the ACA. ACA’s must have a 

written policy on unannounced inspections and inspector access to certified 

facilities that is provided to all clients and to inspectors.

9. If an operation refuses to allow an inspector access to any part of an operation, 

including the non-organic portions of the operation, during normal business 

hours, the operation shall be considered non-compliant with NOP section 

205.403 and the ACA should promptly issue a Notice of Noncompliance to the 

operation. 

10.ACA’s must clearly disclose to their clients their protocols for unannounced 

inspections. ACA’s may charge their clients fees for unannounced inspections 

as long as these fees are clearly disclosed to all clients preemptively. 

Committee Vote

Motion by: John Foster Second: Barry Flamm

Yes: 6 No: 0 Absent: 0 Abstain: 0 Recuse: 0