This document defines operative procedures and minimum requirements for building smallholder groups’ management capacity for organic agriculture and fair trade certification.

These guidelines propose requirements for establishing a credible and efficient group management system, including also ICS, which could be used by any kind of certification scheme. In addition to group management per se, this document singles-out requirements specific to organic agriculture and fair trade. However, the structure of this document is conducive to the addition of further certification schemes requirements (e.g. GlobalGAP, Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), ISO 22000, IFS), with a view to offer a tool for multiple certifications.