April 24th 2024

Key updates

EUDR milestone!

A big milestone for our EUDR offering for coffee and cocoa certificate holders: the first license including EUDR criteria has been granted! One of our coffee farm certificate holders in India is now aligned with EUDR criteria following an audit according to latest guidelines. May many more follow! 

What’s next? 

• 23 April – EUDR release #4 - small change to the Risk Results table (excel) in the RACP. CB's and CH's will see two extra columns showing whether geodata for each farm unit is Valid/Invalid based on EUDR requirements. 
• 21 May – EUDR release #5 - changes in the RACP to prepare for reporting on EUDR requirements and to enable sharing of audit findings. It will enable CBs to submit licenses for CHs that were audited against EUDR requirements, with a simple flow to double check CHs performed all needed steps in RACP. RA colleagues will be able to identify these licenses so they can review and grant licenses with EUDR requirements. 
• Q3 – reporting: EUDR will be added to the public list of Certificate Holders, and a report will be available for Supply chain actors to support their requirements for EUDR 

You can find our EUDR resources via this link.

If you have any feedback or questions about EUDR, please log them in our Q&A log!

Publication of the New Certification Rules

We are happy to announce the publication of the new Certification Rules! In this new version of the Certification Rules, we have split the document from the Auditing Rules to allow for simplification and ease-of-use. The Certification Rules are a key binding document for both CHs and CBs so we have made it easier to use by splitting the document into requirements based on the type of certificate holder. Key changes in content in this version include simplifications in the supply chain verification levels, updates to reflect processes in RACP, fully unannounced surprise audits, an incentive for high-performing farm CHs, and more.

This new version of the Certification Rules will be followed by an updated version of the Auditing Rules.

For more information, please to reach out to Brooke Carroll.

New Policy: Traceability and Certification Exception for Select Banana and Fresh Fruit Certificate Holders

A new Policy for the banana and fresh fruit sectors was released: Traceability and Certification Exception for Select Banana and Fresh Fruit Certificate Holders. This policy exception has been developed to streamline the traceability reporting process, allowing offshore supply chain actors to be exempted from traceability and to simplify the certification process within these sectors. A Spanish version of the policy will be published shortly. 

For more information, contact Nabil Marji or Christiane Hornikel.

Events

Assam IPM Webinar

April 9th, Rainforest Alliance, the UK Tea Association and the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada organised a webinar on Integrated Pest Management: Key Lessons from Assam, and the Way Forward. It focused on RAs pilot program in Assam which seeks a contextualised, stakeholder-driven solution for tea sector pest issues, alligned with our producer-centric 2030 Strategy. It concluded with a call to participating companies to join forces for funding this important work. You can find more information via this link which also includes a recording. For more information please reach out to Madhuri Nanda.