Although, India had been traditionally organic with large pool of traditional wisdom on best practices in organic agriculture, the modern standards based organic agriculture started only recently with the growing demand for organic food and fiber in the western world. With the growing demand for organic food in national and international markets, it became necessary to ensure that the agricultural products labelled as “organic” comply the basic standards of organic production and entire production process is verified by independent certification agencies.

The National Program for Organic Production (NPOP) launched during 2001 laid the foundation for systematic development of organic agriculture sector in the country. It was the first such quality assurance initiative by the Government of India under Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The NPOP not only provided the institutional framework for accreditation of certification agencies and operationalization of certification program through its accredited certification bodies or CB but also ensures that the system effectively works and is monitored on regular basis.

During 2004 the NPOP was brought under the ambit of Foreign Trade Development and Regulation (FTDR) Act wherein it was mandated that no organic products can be exported unless they are certified under NPOP. NPOP has earned international recognition and enjoys recognition agreements with European Union, Switzerland and USDA - NOP. NPOP is being managed and operated by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) under Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.