The Impartiality Committee’s function is to ensure that IOAS conducts its business in an impartial manner. It will be reviewing a sample of decisions made by IOAS and examining the appropriateness of IOAS policies and procedures related to freedom from conflict of interest of individuals and of the organization as a whole. The committee will also determine whether any actions ought to be taken to mitigate against potential risks to impartiality.
Impartiality Committee Members
Alexandra Thoring
Following an interest in environment action groups, Alexandra started working actively in the organic movement and market in 1993 founding her own organic certified company in 1997. Her main activity is consultancy and brokerage focusing mainly on organic grains and pulses within Germany, France and Spain due to current market demands.
Involved worldwide in organic trade, business coaching and mediation activities directly and indirectly, she believes in providing full transparency to her customers and suppliers and has previous impartiality committee experience.
Jan Deane
Jan has been an instrumental part of the organic movement since the early 80s when she and her husband bought a small farm in Devon UK to grow organic vegetables and pioneered the concept of direct marketing vegetable boxes. She has worked both nationally and internationally for the organic movement not only in the areas of inspection, certification and accreditation but also agricultural policy. Since her retirement as IOAS Executive Director (Operations) in 2016, she has continued to work on various projects.
Garth Kahl
Garth has been involved in the organic movement since 1989. In 1996 he started his own farm, which still now grows certified organic vegetables, eggs, wool, beef and blueberries. He built up an international career as an external inspector and as certification manager. In 2011 he started his own company which offers consulting services to processors and producers throughout the US and Latin America in all aspects of organic crop / livestock production and food processing, including field and facility pest control, fertility management. Aware of the threat to our movement posed by conflicts of interest at all levels of the certification process he is glad to be a member of IOAS Impartiality Committee.
Pedro Landa
Mr. Pedro A. Landa is an Ag. Eng. from the University of Buenos Aires (1980). In 1991, Pedro created Organización Internacional Agropecuaria (OIA), an Argentine company pioneer in certification of which he is the founder and Technical Director. OIA is a certification body, dedicated since its beginning mainly to organic production with international scopes. OIA has a long development in the organic sector, being member of the Directory of IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) Affiliates and Pedro was a founding member of Argentine organizations such as MAPO (Argentine Movement for Organic Production) and CACER (Argentine Chamber of Certification). Pedro is also an ISO 9001 Lead Auditor, with a long experience in auditing Quality Management Systems.
