Dear Valued Customer,
Effective September 19, 2024, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) is discontinuing the use of the temporary filing code that allowed for the importation of organics without an import certificate in certain circumstances during the implementation of the new requirements for this program that began in March 2024. This change will require the following to import to the U.S. without exception:
If there is not a valid NOP certificate dated prior to export at the time of importation, the importer has the option to export the goods or to change the status of the imported product to conventional (or non-organic). This change may require a change in the U.S. Harmonized Tariff code and the labelling of the product. The product will likely require repacking/marking change from organic and could then not be sold as organic.
NOP import certificates can be issued per bill of lading or as a blanket for a period of time based on the USDA certifier approval. For shipments with a short transit time, it is recommended that a blanket certificate is issued. In the case of an outage to the NOP Global Integrity, USDA announced a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) for the Global Organic Integrity Database. Manual NOP certificates can be issued when there are system outages. To receive these updates, you can register to the NOP System Outage email notification service.
Thank you for being a Valued Customer. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your C. H. Robinson commercial representative for further information.
Sincerely,
C. H. Robinson