The global organic market is growing rapidly. As trade of organic commodities across international borders increases, the potential for the premium quality expected by consumers from the organic label has the potential to be compromised. There is an attempt to create minimum universal standards in order to encourage international sales of organic products. While the ecological and economic impacts of organic certification have been structured, this paper strives (through literature review) to examine the social implications of organic certifications for small farmers (nationally and internationally) and recent efforts to streamline this process. Within this paper, the situation for small farmers in the United States is discussed as well as an international perspective from Mexico. In each case, the social and economic implications of the certification process for small farmers is examined within the context of the anthropological field of agroecology which allows us to analyze the agroecosystem as a whole.