Peer Review Panel for ISO Compliance

The National Organic Program (NOP) is part of the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and is the organization responsible for activities relating to the development, implementation, and administration in accordance with the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (OFPA) and the USDA organic regulations. Key functions of the NOP include:

• Developing, reviewing, implementing and interpreting the organic standards;
• Enforcing organic production, handling, and labeling standards; and
• Accrediting, auditing, and training third-party organic certifying agents.

The NOP is implementing this peer review process and panel to implement the peer review section of 7 CFR 205.509 Peer review panel of the USDA organic regulations. The contractor shall establish a peer review panel to evaluate the NOP's polices processes and procedures for conformance to ISO/IEC 17011:2011 Conformity Assessment - General requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies. The panel will report their findings in writing to the NOP Deputy Administrator and the National Organic Standards Board. The findings will be considered part of the NOP quality management system and the Deputy Administrator will make corrective actions to the NOP accreditation processes as necessary and appropriate.

General activities to be conducted by the contractor include:

• Select Peer Review Panel
• Select representative sample of accreditation decisions
• Coordinate NOP and certifier documentation review by panel
• Review accreditation procedures and decision documentation
• Prepare draft and final peer review report, recommendations, and presentation

A more detailed explanation of the peer review process that this contract supports is in: "Procedure: Peer Review of National Organic Program (NOP) Accreditation" posted at  https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/NOP%201031%20Peer%20Review%20Process%20v2.pdf