During the mid nineties, it became evident the need to have a state regulation for the increasing Brazilian organic market. It was not until 1999 that the National Department of Agriculture-MAPA¹ showed concern about its regulation. The document written by the national organizations involved with organic production system, finally was signed . The Normative Instruction (NI) 7 of 05/17/1999 defines the organic production system, establishes the minimum pattern to be fulfilled and structures the National System of Organic Certification based on a State and a National Committee.
            The system is bi-partite. It is responsible for organizing local social commitment and provide the national level with local information and peculiarities to endure a decision process with quality. It also defines that the certification bodies should be juridical institutions, without profit goal and with an office located in the Brazilian territory. Its was necessary to regulate how the system would be set to work.
            The state of São Paulo’s Committee started to organize itself discussing a document to be proposed to the National Committee. It is mainly a translation of international documents discussed for more than a year through open sessions. It was then sent to the National Committee that set it for public audience for 90 days. Contributions were submitted and then approved in few meetings of the National Committee. It has been questioned its representation. There were representatives from four out of five regions, including the south and southeast where organic production and the organic movement are better structured. There were also all representatives from the public sector.
            In August 2002 it was held in Rio de Janeiro the first National Agroecology Meeting integrating the most diverse experiences: indians, quilombos (Old African-Brazilians), family farmers, land reform settlers, land reform campers, fishing communities, etc...from all parts of Brazil, showing there arts and achievements. It was held a discussion about certification, in a working group.
            The Assembly approved the decision to demand the National Department of Agriculture-MAPA to uphold the process of implementing NI 06 under the consideration that it excluded the participative certification process, developed in the southern region. This stand by would last until the National Movement Meeting, when it would be defined the group´s position. This meeting was held in Curitiba, in october 2002, financed by the National Department of Agrarian Development-MDA² . The uphold was confirmed and it was organized a virtual group, Organic Agriculture Group-GAO³, that has been discussing the new legal apparatus.
            During the II GAO annual meeting a first draft of a new proposal for the organic law, long being discussed in Congress, was presented. This group, with some dissidence, approved the final document that took its course and became law, practically with no changes, in December 2003. The new legal document (Law 10,831 published in 23/12/2003) defines what is organic production, recognizes that it might exist different types of organic certification and defines that direct selling is certified free, if it is under some social organization control. The last aspect was the only controversial issue and the conflict resolution is yet to come during the law´s regulation process.
            It has been formed several groups to discuss different regulation needs: minimum patterns for vegetal; animal and food processing production; social justice; commercialization and labelling; government structure; auditing and a national contribution to certification processes: the participatory process. The same groups are organized within OAG and MAPA to work separately. There are two working sessions planned to promote the integration of the groups from both institutions.
            Considering that certification is basically a process that excludes some groups, particularly the ones with less economic conditions, it has been developed a process that is culturally more adapted to minorities and guarantee to consumers the organic product quality. The proposition is based on self commitment and social control, instead of external control of the auditing system. It is now being worked, under the time table set by the regulatory process, how it will satisfy the principles of neutrality, independence, technical efficiency and transparency that characterizes the ISO requisites for a certification process.
            The process was developed in the southern region through 'Rede Ecovida' and it has been enhanced by the National Department of Agrarian Development-MDA to become a nation wide process. The MDA is presently financing a project to craft a national network under this approach. In São Paulo, there are two NGOs from the organic movement involved: 'Associação de Agricultura Orgânica-AAO'⁴ and 'Associação de Agricultura Natural de Campinas-ANC'⁵, besides two researchers from official agriculture research institutions: 'Instituto de Economia Agrícola' from the 'Agência Paulista de Tecnologia dos Agronegócios-APTA'⁶ and 'Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Meio Ambiente da Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária-EMBRAPA'⁷.
            More recently, the National Department of Agriculture-MAPA has created the Organic Agriculture Sectorial Board-CSAO, as a consultative body for the Ministry of Agriculture. Organic Agriculture has been defined, by this Department, as one out of five policies priority. The national organic movement is strongly participating in this process creating a policy to enhance social organization around organic production.

¹ MAPA: www.agricultura.gov.br
² MDA: www.mda.gov.br
³GAO: www.sitiodogao.com.br
⁴ AAO: www.aao.org.br
⁵ ANC: www.planetaorganico.com.br/anc.htm
⁶ APTA: www.apta.sp.gov.br
⁷ EMBRAPA: www.embrapa.br