Tasks

• ●Supervision of commercial quality of agricultural and food products, in particular:
  • commercial quality control of agricultural and food products during production and marketing, including exported agricultural and food products,
  • commercial quality control of imported agricultural and food products (the list of imported agricultural and food products and their minimum quantities subjected to commercial quality control is set by the Regulation of Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development),
  • issuing certicates on commercial quality of agricultural and food products.
• Inspection of agricultural and food products labelled, on the basis of other provisions, with registered protected geographical indications, protected designations of origin or certicates of specic character.
• Inspection of agricultural and food products storage and transport conditions.
• Co-operation with paying agencies (Agricultural Market Agency, Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture) in the scope of Common Agricultural Policy.
• Gathering and processing information on agricultural market situation.
• Co-operation with other inspections bodies (Veterinary Inspection, Sanitary Inspection, Plant Protection and Seeds Service), customs ofces and local government units.
• Co-operation with or participation in international organisations working in the area of commercial quality of agricultural and food products and international marketing of agricultural and food products (FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission - acting as Codex Contact Point for Poland, United Nations/Economic
• Commission for Europe – acting as the Polish Secretariat for co-operation with Working Party on Agricultural Quality Standards, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
• Conducting training in the scope of provisions and commercial quality requirements, setting quality classes and methods of analyses of agricultural and food products.
• Co-operation with foreign ofcial inspection units on commercial quality of agricultural and food products (co-operation with Russia).

Additionally Inspection has competences for carrying out control in the following scopes:

• fruit and vegetable market - EU member states are required to control fresh fruit and vegetables at all stages of trading, i.e. to control goods imported from third countries, goods exported to third countries and to perform controls on the common market. In Poland all the above responsibilities are covered by IJHARS;
• hop market - IJHARS is fully responsible for hop and hop products certification in Poland. Under state legislation the Inspection is authorized to issue hop and hop products certificates, run the register of hop plantations, register contracting agreements, hop supplies and sale as well as the quantity of hop issued;
• genetically modied organisms (GMO) ;
• wine products ;
• organic farming - u nder Organic Farming Act IJHARS supervises certifying units authorized by appropriate minister of agriculture, receives applications from the producers who have entered into organic farming, authorizes producers to import organic farming products from third countries not included on the European Commission list, controls organic farming products from third countries and gathers and stores information on producers with regards to organic farming and discloses it to interested operators ;
• fertilisers and fertilisation ;
• store houses, surplus stocks of agricultural products .