@kasa_balavu I understand your point, but let me explain how I see this situation. Please note that this is my personal perspective and I do not claim to be speaking on behalf of Garry or anyone else linked to TK.
When Garry started doing his testing there was no such thing as a separate TK project. It was all part of the forums. A concerned member who invested his time and money to test kava regularly consumed by other members of the forum while constatly consulting with other members and working with them together to develop testing standards etc. It was in a way a child of the forum. As the project was progressing Garry kept calling for help/assistance and kept encouraging people to join his efforts. But the idea wasn't to develop Garry's "business", but simply to advance the concept of a consumers' "watchdog". Or actually to force vendors to demand higher quality, to test their products, etc. At some point Garry (and many others) actually wanted the forum to become sort of fused together with True Kava project and to not only discuss kava, but also to monitor its quality and promote safe, responsible use. This idea was seen as too extreme by the forum's owner who wanted this platform to remain more fun or open, so to speak.
It was at this point that TK became more of a separate body, but still closely linked to all our discussions here. On the one hand TK started doing their own certificates, but on the other hand it kept spreading the simple message that vendors should consider testing all their batches and that they should aim to guarantee noble.
TK has never claimed to be the only authority on good kava, but it has presented a solid case for trusting the vendors that followed its guidelines and recommendations. Consumers started recognising the value of TK's process and more and more people became interested in getting "certified". At some point TK received requests from big wholesalers in places like Vanuatu. From what I understand, TK decided it had no means of ensuring that all the stuff that wholesalers in Vanuatu send to their retailers around the globe is 100% noble as they themselves admit that they source their kava from hundreds of small suppliers, so it chose not to try to certify them. This might be unfair, but not unreasonable. If you were to be a kava farmer who wanted to simply export his own product, then I think TK could have considered certifying these products. But if you were one of the many big traders who send hundreds of kgs of kava from hundreds of farms to hundreds of places around the globe and you were totally unknown to TK then it's arguably more difficult to be confident about vouching for your products. In any case, the point of TK is not to be the "monopoly" on kava standard, but to encourage testing, reliability and consistency. So I am sure that the vast majority of people who trust TK would also trust a vendor who would be keen to guarantee 100% purity, nobility (or money back) and who would test each batch of his/her kava. But the reality is that there are few such vendors. Some vendors might not be able to meet these requirements. Others seem to have a different business plan ( I will send you a PM about one such example that you might be familiar with).
Anyway, the TK was growing slowly, but more recently Garry has been forced to dedicate his attention to other, more pressing issues and priorities and hasn't been able to dedicate as much attention to TK testing or certifying new vendors. He has kept calling for assistance/encouraging people to do their own testing, but nobody seems to be interested/capable of helping him with this project. Those who might have the resources and incentive to advance the project recognize that they also often might be seen as having a conflict of interest, so they simply cannot get more involved.
That's my take on TK. I wish it had become an integral element of this forum with more members actively participating in this project and advancing the concept of a big "kava consumer watchdog". But obviously this platform's owner has a right to do anything he likes with his forum and I respect it (and remain grateful for his service to the big kava community).
