Agro-Avant, based in the Netherlands, Europe is specialised in agriculture related trading, especially of bio-certified organic products, like pomegranates, saffron, varieties of herbs, and citrus. Agro-Avant stimulates organic production by supporting knowledge exchange and certification of organic produce and production facilities, cooperating with about 10.000 individual organic farmers and several large cooperations owning the organic certified production facilities. In total Agro-Avant is certification holder of 77.000ha (in 2012) organic produce in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Certifying body of these certifications is Control Union Group BV in the Netherlands, registered affiliate of the International Federation of Organic Farming Movements (IFOAM).