The following activities were carried out in the first stage of this project: a procedure for mapping potential organizations and producers was developed; the participative certification was publicized during Cerrado Netwrok events; identification and mobilization of Cerrado Network organizations for participation in the project; application of the questionnaire with the interested parties; assessment of existing certification procedures in Brazil and abroad; information exchange with certifying organizations; establishment of dialog with public, civil and governmental organizations involved in regulating organic production; different meetings were held to insure the proper execution of the project. All these activities yielded very positive results. The main difficulty found was in dealing with the de-centralized characteristic of the the group, with asynchronous schedules and ineffective communication among the participants due to a lack of technology in some areas. A change in the methodology attacked this problem efficiently by centralizing the coordination of the project and reducing the number of field visits to a more realistic figure.