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ECOCERT PRESS RELEASE MISLEADING INFORMATION ABOUT GMO-COTTON

Further to the article regarding GMO-cotton certification released by the Financial Times Deutschland in its January 22nd issue, and considering that such article contains misleading information regarding Ecocert, we would like to clarify the following points :

ECOCERT did not deliver any organic certification for GMO cotton nor for conventional cotton, and that point is not and has never been contested neither by the Indian accreditation body (NAB) nor by Apeda.

Contrary to what already happened in the past years towards other certification bodies, APEDA did not withdraw ECOCERT accreditation and never challenged the validity of the cotton certification issued by Ecocert India Pvt Ltd.

APEDA imposed a pecuniary sanction on Ecocert India Pvt Ltd on March 23rd 2009 due to administrative deviations towards the NPOP regulation (National Programme on Organic Production, Indian standard for organic production). Such penalty did not affect the validity of the certificates issued by Ecocert. APEDA performed a new audit to verify our corrective actions three months later and concluded that the procedures of Ecocert India Pvt Ltd are reliable.

During its inspection and certification process, Ecocert takes samples on seeds, leaves and fibres on a regular basis which are then analyzed by independent laboratories accredited by NAB. Such analyses have not shown until now the presence of GM material among organic cotton certified by Ecocert India Pvt Ltd.

Therefore, the accusations on fraudulent BT cotton certifications towards Ecocert India Pvt are unfounded.

As the published information may harm the image of Ecocert, we kindly ask you to relay this correction in your next issue.

We would be delighted to answer any question regarding this issue.

Press Contact
Julie Basdevant
julie.basdevant@ecocert.com