The specific objectives are the following:

• To guide the participants to an active preparation by providing selected training materials before the training. This will ensure that they have refreshed the basics of EU organic control systems before their arrival, such as the general obligations, responsibilities and activities of the authorities for organic farming incl. control authorities and bodies. This also enables the desired very comprehensive and in-depth as well as very practical and interactive training to be carried out in the given time;
• To provide an initial overview of the new regulations and comparison to the earlier ones, and also to delve into the practical application of the new regulations on a number of individual topics and, by doing that, other basic elements of the organic control system. Therefore, e.g. details of delegation and supervision by the competent authorities will be included in such selected practical case studies in order to respond to the additional, new, modified or concrete requirements of the Reg. (EU) 2018/848;
• To further improve the knowledge and awareness of the new organic regulation (EU) 2018/848 and consequential control requirements, in ensuring its correct enforcement and in promoting a harmonised approach to the operation of EU and national control systems;
• To dive deeper into key requirements of the EU Official Control and Organic Regulations and empower responsible staff of controlling authorities on NCA, CtlrA and CB level, also including staff from e.g. AB or other relevant official entities on national, regional or local level including border and market control experts by offering specifically selected topics in a practical manner.
• To support the insurance of a consistent and rigorous implementation of the regulatory requirements to contribute to the rapid growth in the organic sector in the past and probably next decade;
• To consider and address weaknesses and raising challenges due to a not sufficiently harmonised control approach in a globally increasing organic sector that also poses higher risks like fraudulent structures;
• To consider and base all training materials on the latest reports and analysis published by the EU Commission, mainly DG SANTE audits reports, statistics, FAQ`s and other key publications provided by relevant official authorities to support the participants in their aims developing and implementing more risk based and effective control procedures;
• To offer balanced theoretical and practical sessions, with emphasis on the practical sessions, including simulations, case studies, group exercises and on-the-spot visits of different organic operators (or possibly group of operators) to gather practical experience on provided information.
• To allow exchange of experience and dissemination of best practices for control activities and relevant procedures of experts working in EU Member States and beneficial countries.
• As Organic production is one of the Europeans Commission’s policy instruments and being in line with the Green Deal, better trained staff of the control authorities will also – indirectly - contribute the European Commission`s Biodiversity and Farm to Fork Strategies.

This Training Programme has been designed for the profiles and positions described below. Please verify compliance with the selection criteria before submitting or validating applications.Only eligible participants should be further assessed against the minimum requirements below.

Participants shall represent staff of competent authorities involved in official control activities

The trainees should have the required technical skills related to the fields listed below:

• either work at a Control Bodies or
• work at a Contracting Authority, Control Bodies/Control Authorities (EU MS);
• have been working for more than 3 years and mainly in the field of organic control systems;
• they have a sound knowledge of the previous EU Regulation (834/07 etc.);
• they have already attended trainings on the new regulations (2017/625 or 2018/848 and IR/DA);
• they read the provided information beforehand and
• they bring the tasks to the training prepared.

The course will be held in English.

The participants will be requested to commit themselves to use the knowledge gained from the courses and also disseminate it via different dissemination methods i.e. informing colleagues about the information received at the training, distributing (photocopying or sending via electronic way) the training material among their colleagues, preparing informative articles in the professional national or, if possible, in international journals, preparing presentations based on the training material for the National Competent authorities’ professional trainings or other dissemination methods which could be appropriate to share the information received via the BTSF trainings.

The foremost focus of the selection process is to ensure that the right candidates attend the training. For this project, we believe that the candidates must:

• Have management responsibilities within their institution, particularly around delegating, supervising, monitoring, coordinating and/ or planning activities for organic production, handling and/or labelling organic products;
• Have direct involvement in carrying out inspections and certification of organic operators including group operators and market controls of retailers who sell organic products;
• Have a background in working in the controls of imported organic products or other specific areas as e.g. animal husbandry, breeding, evaluation of off-farm inputs, laboratory (interpretation of lab analyses) etc. as well as prevention of or dealing with fraud cases;
• Have the skills and knowledge to participate in the training as it will address very specific issues. Staff already trained in their home country: responsible for organic production and labelling of organic products;
• Have the capacity to commit and support to disseminate the information and knowledge and/ to train colleagues and others within their organisation and activity fields the successful dissemination of information and knowledge will significantly increase the impact of the training programmes.

This Training Programme has been designed for the profiles and positions described below. Please verify compliance with the selection criteria before submitting or validating applications.

a) staff of the competent authority/ies for organic production and labelling of organic products involved in the registration of organic operators and group of operators, the approval and supervision of control bodies, the planning and coordinating of control activities for organic production and labelling of organic products, the preparation of the organic data in the Annual Reports, the handling of requests for derogations and the exchange of information with the competent authorities of other Member States (MS) and the Commission;

b) staff of the national, regional and local competent authorities directly involved in carrying out inspections of organic operators and group of operators and market controls of retailers who sell pre-packed organic products and are exempted from the obligation of the possession of certificate;

c) staff of the competent authorities involved in the controls of imported organic products;

d) staff of the public control authorities or the private control bodies to which specific responsibilities or tasks relating to control activities for organic production and labelling of organic products have been conferred (for control authorities) or delegated (for control bodies) by the competent authorities;

e) staff of the national accreditation bodies involved in the accreditation of control bodies to whom control tasks have been delegated.

Session	Start Date	End Date	City	Country
1	28/03/2022	31/03/2022	Santander	Spain
2	25/04/2022	28/04/2022	Florence	Italy
3	16/05/2022	19/05/2022	Santander	Spain
4	27/06/2022	30/06/2022	Vienn	Austria
5	26/09/2022	29/09/2022	Florence	Italy
6	24/10/2022	27/10/2022	Vilnius	Lithuania
7	28/11/2022	01/12/2022	Florence	Italy
8	05/12/2022	08/12/2022	Vilnius	Lithuania
9	23/01/2023	26/01/2023	Santander	Spain
10	20/02/2023	23/02/2023	Vienna	Austria