California Certified Organic Farmers

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California Certified Organic Farmers, or CCOF is a membership organization formed in the early 1970s, to promote organic farming and small-scale agriculture. It began as a group of 54 farmers mutually certifying each other's adherence to published, publicly available standards for defining organic agriculture.

The standards outlined soil building, and pest control strategies as well as specifying materials and practices that were forbidden to organic farmers.

CCOF was one of the first US based organizations to certify organic farmers. It was partially responsible for the passage of the California legal definition of organic agriculture the first state law defining organic agriculture. It also played an important role in the creation of US national organic standards.

As of 2005 it has more than 1,400 members, and certifies over 400 organic products and crops. ^[1]

[edit] History

After being founded in 1973, it grew, and gained new members, growing from California's Central Coast across the whole state. In 1979 the California Organic Food Act of 1979 was passed, based upon CCOF's standards. However, it contained no state enforcement provisions, requiring private groups such as CCOF to pursue enforcement. The first big case was in 1988, against Pacific Organics.